King Jesus: The God-man is Born
December 24, 2006 8:35 am Luke, Sermon-TextsAn exegetical treatment of Luke 1:26-38 addressing the theme of Jesus’ birth. This sermon was originally preached December 24th of 2006 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
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Christmas Eve Day
“King Jesus: the God-man is born”
Luke 1:26-38
I. a story
II. the name Jesus
III. the son of God
IV. the everlasting King
Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. Feliz Navidad. Noel… pick your season’s greeting. for some the bells are ringing, the cash is flowing, the celebrations are under way, the turkey is in the oven, and loved ones are found all together. for others there is no music in their ears, there is no money, it is a dark and hard time and loved ones are nowhere to be found. all cultures in all places across the world have their traditions and we have ours for sure. but what gets masked beneath the layers of the unavoidable festivity is the greatness of the story of Christ being born.
and it doesn’t matter if you are a christian or not, whether you are fan of the story and it is familiar to you or whether it is a faint echo you hear in the songs being played at the stores while you shop. for those who know it well and have celebrated many christmases as followers of Christ there is a numbness to it all that can come. santa, good meals and treats, presents, and playing in the snow (well, not in san diego) all sounds a lot funner than thinking about some middle eastern jewish people who dressed in robes and didn’t have ipods. and on top of it, it’s something that supposedly happened about two-thousand years ago. i feel that. i feel the detachment to this story.
may God have mercy on us for the blind narrowness of our vision. it is my goal today to hopefully ignite or rekindle a passionate love and adoration for the birth of the Son of God this morning… that we might burn with amazement and wonder and deep affection for the supreme God who sent his Son into the world.
this is the fourth and final week of advent. advent is the month of the year that christians throughout the centuries have celebrated the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. the first week focused on the hope of Christ, the second on the peace of Christ, last week on the joy of Christ, and this week on Christ coming as the king. the passage we are going to look at today is found in luke 1:26-38.
26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” 29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. 30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 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, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” 35 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 born will be called holy - the Son of God. 36 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. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God” 38 And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed her.
in preparing for this sermon during this last week in studying this text and taking some culture notes about opinions of the nativity i realized very quickly that the main issue that comes up, that is challenged or questioned whenever there is real discussion about the nativity story is whether or not the baby Jesus was really God in the flesh. sure people argue about whether Mary was a virgin, whether there were really angels, whether or not this even happened, or if the story we have is just an explanation of Mary or a conjecture of Jesus’ disciples that was made up for one reason or another. but the thing that isn’t really even on most radar, the thing that is most quickly dismissed as absurd and preposterous is that the baby Jesus was God in the flesh. this is simply just unacceptable to our modern or postmodern minds.
and me, when i watch a 20/20 special called “the real nativity story” or when i see a special on the history channel, or when i read an article in newsweek called “the nativity of the jews”, and the main theme and tone of these pieces is to tell that none of is really true and if any of it is we have an extremely distorted and extended view of what really happened, i get kind of pissed. the writers or hosts of these specials speak as though they were doing us a favor and telling “christians” that they know something we don’t and we are primitive imbeciles for believing such a thing and should really wake up and get serious. so my response is ok then, let’s get serious. and in gearing up for this morning i was ready fight. i love a debate and i love honesty and openness and truth and when i know something is being falsely portrayed and they are only quoting liberal scholars, well the history channel did have one of my Talbot professors on it (the one conservative), then my reaction is be like okay, you want to talk reason and you want to talk scholarship, then let’s go, let’s take off the gloves and step into the octagon and see who wins. do it UFC style you know. J
but when i was thinking about that it didn’t seem very christmassy. i realized that setting up the theological arguments and textual debates and going through all of that to prove to you that the gospel records are reliable and that there is good solid reason to believe that what happened is true and that the baby Jesus was really God…that didn’t feel right for christmas eve day. so if you want that, take our theology course and we’ll get into it there.
what i want to do today is to tell you a story and then look at a few things in this text from Luke that we read. i’m not going to go through every little bit that is there like we do when we are studying through a book like Romans, but we’ll still do some exegesis and see how incredible God’s Word is.
a story
so i want to tell you a story. hopefully it will help us see and understand a little better what was going on here.
most of you know that besides pastoring this church i also work at a group home for teenagers. the kids are from 13-17 and they eat, sleep, and go to school there. last week a new girl and her boyfriend came to live with us. jeremy and melissa. normally, we would never accept a boyfriend and girlfriend together but this is a weird situation. they are both seventeen and it is a weird situation because in california you can get married if you are under eighteen if you have parental consent and both of these kid’s parents have said they can get married, so jeremy and melissa are engaged and their county social workers and our program director are all trying to do something to help them and this situation out.
they both come from poor families like all the kids who come to live with us. i helped check jeremy in and he had all of his possessions in a backpack and one of those blue rubbermaid bins. so they are both there now. but the situation has gotten more complicated. both nice kids. jeremy is super into cars. in his rubbermaid bin he had a bunch of hotrod magazines. i guess his dad is a mechanic and that what he wants to be. melissa is a pretty quiet girl. i don’t know her as well because i work on the guys side. but in her room she has a few pictures of her with her colorguard team. i guess she has done colorguard at her high school the last few years.
so last week a couple of days after they got to new alternatives where i work, we found out that melissa is pregnant. and if the situation wasn’t weird enough already, melissa, who seems like this very honest and well behaved girl, swears that she has never had sex. neither with jeremy or any other boy. and when the social workers and female staff have questioned her about it she has this wild story that an angel came to her in her room four nights ago and said that she was going to be pregnant and told her what to name the baby and said that when her baby grew up that he was going to be great, that he would be the Son of God and that he would become the president and that his term would never end and he would never die.
obviously, all of us are like yeah right. but melissa swears its true. she says that she told the angel she had trouble with it at first too and when she asked the angel how such a thing could be the angel told her that in some supernatural way that God’s spirit would come over her and by his power would cause her to be pregnant and that the child to be born would then be the holy one of God. and melissa says that the angel told her that God had opened the wombs of barren women in the past and that because God is God and can do things that are impossible that he could make her be pregnant without her ever even having sex.
that’s my story and in case you didn’t figure it out yet…i made it up. i made up that story because i think that because of the time and because of the historical and cultural different between us and what happened we fail to see the greatness of what happened when God came into the world. this story shows how great the God is that we believe in. if there really is a God and if God is really worth worshipping and living our lives for then this is the kind of God he would be…a God who doesn’t come into the world in all his pomp saying look at me look at me but comes in the most humble of circumstances to show why he is worthy of worship.
he comes to a poor, meek little girl, and reveals his glory. it would have been so easy for God to come into the world in a way where there would be no question about whether or not he was God and all the world would not be the least bit skeptical about it but rather than that he creates what looks like a scandal and reveals his glory in the middle of it. all throughout the Bible God does this…he shows up to a nobody named abraham and reveals his glory in the hiddenness of a burning bush, he shows up to another nobody named moses and reveals his glory in plagues so that the jews get kicked out of egypt, he shows up to the smallest boy, a lowly shepherd of a family who had seven other older, more capable boys, and makes that boy a king. yes, God is a God who loves to show he is God in unique ways that reflect all the goodness of his perfect character.
the name Jesus
okay i want to look at some things in our text for today that really point to the greatness of who Jesus is. thinking about the context of this story can easily cause us to get wrapped up more with Mary and her role in all of this than Jesus. and don’t get me wrong because Mary is amazing. she becomes the first christian, a great example of faith to us all and not only that but one of her other sons, James, becomes the pastor of one of the biggest churches in the first century. but this story is mainly about God and his glory revealed in Jesus.
so we’re going to skip the cultural things about Nazareth, a small poor town that Mary came from, and we’ll skip the things about Mary’s virginity and how she was betrothed or engaged to Joseph when she was probably between the ages of 12-14 and we’ll skip looking at the angel’s greeting and what it means how mary had trouble with it. basically, calling her “favored one” doesn’t mean she did something or earned favor with God but that God chose her out of all of human history to be the mother of God which is a huge huge privilege…she is a favored, the recipient of a monumental blessing. so let’s pick the story up at verse 31 when the angel says, “and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus.”
why the name Jesus? it wasn’t a name that had never been used before. other people had been called Jesus. in greek it is ee-ay-soos (Ihsouv) and in hebrew it is yay-shew-ah (ewvwhy) and it means “the LORD is salvation” or “the LORD saves.” the name or word God has several things that are associated with it, different attributes and characteristics…but the name of God in the flesh was first meant to be specifically associated with salvation. some may have named their child Jesus because of their spiritual devotion to God but this child was named Jesus because of who he would and what he came to do. save.
God came into the world and he came to save…Jesus, the savior. in the account according to the disciple Matthew, we read that an angel appears to Mary’s fiancé Joseph as well and the angel says this to him, “you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins (Mt 1:21).” so from the start, we learn that Jesus came into the world to solve the spiritual problem that we have as human beings. and our problem is God. we are estranged from him. we doubt his existence and yet he is the thing we long for. and even when we have times when we realize the truth of who he is we quickly resort back into living our lives as though he doesn’t. we are made to be happy in God and we are not because we have an internal spiritual problem…sin and Jesus came to save us from it and its consequences by being born and by dying on a cross and rising again.
J.I. Packer says in his book knowing God says this, “the crucial significance of the cradle at bethlehem lies in its place in the sequence of steps that led the Son of God to the cross of calvary…” the wonder of God becoming man and being born as a baby is that he was born to die for us in order to save us. he saves us from the power of sin so that we may begin to taste true satisfaction in God and he saves us from the consequence of sin so that we will not suffer eternal death but rather eternal joy forever and ever with God because he died that death for us in our place. that is what takes my breath away…that God, who has no need of anything, became a baby and from the moment he was conceived in the womb of mary…every bit of food, every sip of drink, every thought, every conversation, every act of his life growing up, every single thing he experienced was all purposely part of his mission to go to the cross and die.
think of that. how much Jesus loves us that for 33 years every single thing he did, all the while knowing he was God, but in everything he did we were present in his mind as the reason for doing what he was doing. that is incredible. Jesus, the LORD saves!
the Son of God
then look at the next verse in Luke, “he will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.” this is where some interject and they say, “see it just says ‘son’ it doesn’t say that Jesus was very very God himself.” but listen to how the angel clarifies himself to mary in verse 35, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to born will be called holy - the Son of God.” the description is very clear. the holy spirit will come upon you. so this work will be a work of God. what kind of work? one where a unique use of God’s power will occur and the result will be that the child will be the holy son of God. holy means separate, different, divine…the divine Son of God.
the phrase “son of God” has a few different uses in the Bible. sometimes it is used as references to mankind in general in that we are created by God…sons of God. culturally, sometimes rulers were called the “son of God.” but when referring to Jesus the term has a special designation in the bible as being the heavenly eternal Son who is equal to God himself. “son of God” was a title Jesus allowed himself to be called by, it was one of the things that made the Jewish leaders really mad because they understood that he was claiming to be God. listen to how John describes Jesus as the son of God. “in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Jesus Christ (Jn 1:1,14,17).”
but what does it mean to say that Jesus was the “son of God.” does it mean that first there was God before there was Jesus. but then God procreated, making a son so that now there are two gods? that is what some have suggested. but is that really what is going on here? is this story about mary, and all the references to Jesus being the Son of God really just another story like Zeus and Ganymade or Poseidon and Caeneus, the Greek gods who would come down to earth and have sex with humans resulting in another god?
i don’t think so. not only is the angel’s description very careful in his choosing of words to clearly say that mary gets pregnant by God’s supernatural power and not by God having sex with her, but the Bible means something different when it says Jesus is the Son of God. it is a use of human terminology, a metaphor, to describe what in some ways Jesus is like…it is a reference to Jesus’ divine role. in the Bible Jesus is eternally the son of God, long before the angel came to mary…when that happened is just the point in history when Jesus permanently took on human flesh.
there are times long before mary became pregnant when Jesus showed up. the name “Israel” was given to Jacob, the son of Abraham, after the Bible describes him wrestling with God in the form of a man. there are other references, but just to make it clear that the Bible does in fact teach that Jesus as the Son of God means his eternal role as God, listen to Hebrews chapter one, “…(God) has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by his powerful word (Heb 1:2-3).”
now that is a little mind stretching i know. i just want us to try and get our heads around how huge this is. this angel comes to mary and says that the eternal son of God, the one who made the universe, God of God himself, is going to come into the world and be born as a baby in her stomach. this is nearly insane. it is no wonder luke says in verse 29, “But she was greatly troubled at the saying.” and then asks “how can this be.”
then the angel replies with some good solid logic and philosophy. i mean it. one of the most frustrating things about those news pieces is that they like to pit these issues as issues of reason versus feeling. where if you believe these things then that is just wishful religious and spiritual feeling that if you listened to reason you would simply not accept. but the angel here gives some good sound reasoning when he answers mary and explains how she will give birth to the son of God. listen again to his words, verse 37 “nothing will be impossible with God.” that is good reasoning. if there is a God, then there is a being who is all-powerful…not limited by the constraints of time, space, gravity, and matter…he made it all and upholds it all by the power of his word and he can change it at any moment if he chooses because he is God…there is nothing too impossible for him to do! that is good logic. sound philosophy. i love it.
there is no question that what the angel was telling mary was that she would give birth to the God-man himself. there is a lot more that could be said about this. questions of how to rightly conceive of Jesus being a God-man and how it played out in his life. but we are going to move to on this morning. if you want more of that i gave a teaching recently at the last theology on tap called “the theoanthropos - a hypostatic union” and you can now download it online under the theology section of our website.
the everlasting King
the last thing i want to point out in our text today is in verse 32 and 33 where the angel says, “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.” so far we have learned that this baby will be our savior, that he is God himself, and now we learn that he is an everlasting king.
look at that phrase “the throne of David.” David was the first real king of Israel, the Jewish people. he solidified the kingdom. defeated all Israel’s enemies so there was peace. and spiritual and material prosperity began to flow through the nation which continued in even greater proportion during the reign of David’s son Solomon. but from David on, he gets permanently branded as being the royal father of the Jews. so it is clearly said here that Jesus will be a king.
later in Luke’s gospel (Luke 23) just moments before Jesus was crucified, the jewish leaders bring him before pilate and say, “we found this man misleading our nation…and saying that He himself is Christ, a King.” and so Pilate asks him, “are you the king of the jews?” and Jesus says, “It is as you say.” Jesus the king. the king who dies for his people.
and the angel tells us a little more…not only will he be the king but he will be the king forever. do you see that…”he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. and of his kingdom there will be no end.” no end. not in time nor in breadth. that is why Jesus is the king for all people and for all time. there is no end to his reign.
so what kind of king is Jesus? at this point we could easily just spiritualize his kingship and say he is simply a spiritual king and his reign is in our hearts. and that is true. Jesus came to save us from our sins. our allegiance from birth as humans is to wickedness and Jesus comes to deliver us from that and begins to extend his reign and rule so that we start to truly love righteousness and hate wickedness.
but there is more. Jesus taught that there were two comings. the time when he came in a manger, to humble himself and to deal with our spiritual problem…and the time when he would come again in all his power and glory demonstrating to all that HE is king over all. listen to Jesus words in Matthew 24, “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come…(as) lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be…And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky…and (all) will see the son of man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory…And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other (Mt 24:14,27,30-31).”
what a day that will be. there will be no question on that day who is king. Paul who wrote the book of romans that we are studying and will get back to in January…in philippians just after he describes Jesus coming into the world he too talks about this second coming of Christ. he says that then that, “at the name of Jesus of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:10-11).”
are we ready for that. the way that you can tell is whether you long for it or whether you are afraid of it. but one thing is for sure and that is Jesus is the everlasting king. he is the king of heaven, the king of our hearts, and will come and show himself to be the king of the earth.
in conclusion there is one last thing i want to point out about Jesus being our king. and that is the idea of a monarchy itself. here in america we live in a democracy with a president and a senate and house of representatives and this whole governmental structure that is completely different than a society that is ruled by a king. the whole king thing is just kind of foreign i think…at least it is to me.
but i think it is important for us to know that there is no hope in any human government because humans are weak and sinful no matter how you structure them together. the point is that our only hope is that we have God as our king. the perfect ruler who will never fail us. when God is king that is called a theocracy. and that is what God has intended all along…he has just been patient with humanity in demonstrating that to us.
there is a passage of scripture that comes to my mind every time elections come around or when people get really hyped up about politics and this and that. and i’m not saying that isn’t wrong or there isn’t a place for christians in all that. but that is not where our hope lies. this passage is in 1 Samuel 8 before David comes on the scene, before there was ever a king in Israel…but the people come to Samuel, who along with the judges of the land led the people, and the people say they want a king so they can be like all the other nations around them…God’s reply is wrenching. he says to samuel to go ahead and give them a king and then listen to God’s next words to samuel, he says “they have note rejected you but they have rejected me from being king over them (1 Sam 8:7).” you see, God intends to be king over us and it is the only way we are satisfied.
conclusion
king Jesus, son of God, savior. it’s christmas eve. the day before our the birthday of the king of the universe. in every sermon i try to give us some application…and as i took all of this in it seems that what we are left with is thanks. knowing what we know…what this story tells us about Jesus…my heart is overwhelmed with thanks to God for sending Jesus into the world. miracle of miracles. Christ the savior is born.
let’s just worship and adore our God today. my hope is that something from this morning’s sermon would take a seat deep inside you and just sit there and that we would go home to our friends and families or wherever we go and have a deep sense of thanks and joy for Jesus. as we come to the table this morning, let’s have especially have a heart of thanks to God for being born to die. he became a baby, flesh and blood, bread and wine, in order to die for us. as we come to give of our money, let’s have a heart of thanks for Jesus. we don’t pay any dues or tithes here…we just give gifts of thanks to our God.
in most governments you protect the ruler whether it is a king or a president or emperor or whatever. but this king, king Jesus, is the one who goes out in front of all to protect us, he gives his life for us. the most worthy king of all. and in most governments only the rich and powerful know the ruler and have access to him. but not with king Jesus. he goes after the lost, the outcast, the poor, the messed up and invites all to come and sit at his royal table and to dine with him. that’s the gospel. the gospel of the kingdom of Christ.
let’s worship our king. spread the news of how great his kingdom is. and let’s give our lives for it…from our time, to our gifts, to our money. let’s give ourselves to the king and do everything we can to support and spread his kingdom.
let’s pray.