Sermon Tone Analysis

Christmas Sermon Series

Emmanuel – The Greatest Gift Part 1

The Dedication of Mary

Luke 1:26-38

We have officially entered into the Christmas Season and for the next four weeks our new series is called Emmanuel -The Greatest Gift.

In this series, we are looking at the events and people who were vital to humanity receiving the greatest gift that there will ever be and what our response is to God’s calling as believers.

The Christmas season celebrates the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I want to bring to your attention that there is no scripture or command in the Bible to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

The early church did not celebrate the birth of Christ.

It wasn’t until the fourth century that church officials decided to institute the birth of Christ as a holiday.

Now you also need to know that the Bible does not mention the exact date for Jesus’ birth.

However, some evidence suggests that His birth had occurred in the spring.

Pope Julius was the one who chose December 25.

It is commonly believed that the church adopted this date to sway the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival.

In Rome, Saturnalia was a holiday in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture.

The custom of Christmas spread to Egypt by 432 and to England by the end of the sixth century.

By the end of the eighth century, the celebration of Christmas had spread to Scandinavia.

Today, in the Greek and Russian orthodox churches, Christmas is celebrated 13 days after the 25th, which is also referred to as the Epiphany or Three Kings Day.

This is the day it is believed that the three wise men finally found Jesus.

We still today celebrate the winter solace by celebrating the Birth of Christ.

As we begin to look into Jesus’ Birth, we have to start from the beginning and work our way forward.

The beginning of the Birth of Christ came as a prophecy from the Old Testament the prophet ISAIAH, he said in chapter 7, verse 14, “Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive, have a Son, and name Him Immanuel.”

The significance of this passage is threefold; first, God the Father was going to give mankind a sign.

This sign is what the scribes, the Pharisee, and the Sadducees studied, they went to school for it and devoted their lives to knowing the Old Testament Law, yet they did not want to believe that Christ was the Messiah.

Second, the sign was the virgin conception.

The importance of the virgin birth bearing the Son has to do with the transferring of sin.

The Book of Exodus 34:7 tells us the man is the transferring power of the Inequity- in Hebrew term is “AVOWN” which is the inside sin- Exodus goes on to say “Bringing the consequences (THIS WORD IS TRANSLATED AS INIQUITIES”) of the fathers’ wrongdoing on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.”

Male and female had sin, but according to the scripture, this inequity (SIN) is only is transferred through the father to his offspring.

Therefore, Mary did not become pregnant from a man.

Thus sin is not transferred to the Son, therefore making Christ without sin.

Third, God declared the name of His Son to be Immanuel.

The name Immanuel means “God with us.”

Therefore, the Son is proclaimed as God by God hundreds of years before the birth from the virgin Mary ever happened.

And through His name, we would know that the very presence of God is with us.

Then the ninth chapter, he says: “For a child will be born for us, a Son will be given to us, and the government will be on His shoulders.

He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”

These prophecies took place 700 years before the birth of Christ.

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah prophesied the most incredible event in the history of mankind, the birth of Jesus Christ, and we find that prophecy becoming fulfilled in Luke’s Gospel by a young Jewish girl by the name of Mary.

If you have your Bibles with you today and I hope that you do.

Open your Bible with me to the New Testament book of Luke.

Luke is the third book in the New Testament – Matthew – Mark, then Luke.

Luke chapter 1.

Luke tells us at the beginning of this Gospel that he has carefully investigated everything from the beginning.

He has spoken to those eyewitnesses from the Birth of Christ to His death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven.

Because of this account, we can safely assume that Luke spoke directly to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and received this account of His birth.

If you are there in Luke Chapter 1, follow along with me, beginning at verse 26.

This is the Word of God, and it begins like this.

Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by 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.

The virgin’s name was Mary.

28 And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”

29 But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was.

30 Then 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 bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS.

32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give 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.”

Matthew 1:21 added that Jesus would “save His people from their sins”

34 Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?”

35 And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.

36 Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren.

37 For with God nothing will be impossible.”

38 Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord!

Let it be to me according to your word.”

And the angel departed from her”.

This is the greatest historical event for mankind, and it is also the greatest prophecy that has been fulfilled.

Why do I call this story the greatest event and the greatest prophecy fulfilled?

Because without this significant event happening, without this prophecy fulfilled then the “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” would not have been born nine months later.

I love this story because it is about an unsuspecting young girl who is approached to change her life when her life is just getting started.

I mean, I can connect with that; I don’t know about you?

Have you ever been on track to do something in your life, and then something stops you, and now you are on a different path than you planned?

Maybe it was getting pregnant, or it’s an illness, perhaps something happened financially, a divorce, a loss of a job or even an early retirement, a death in your family, for me, a call to ministry.

These are things that can help us relate to what Mary is going through.

In Gayle's and my lives, significant events moved us from our will to God’s will.

When I retired from the Army, when my government job was being cut in Saint Louis, Receiving the blessing of another job, our grandson had brain cancer.

I quit my job with the government a few years ago.

These are all significant events in our lives that moved us from where we were to where God wanted us to be.

And the truth is there will be more events that will take place in all of our lives.

God’s word paints this great picture of what happened to Mary, but it also shows the process of dedicating our lives to God’s plan as well.

And that is what the birth of Christ shows us.

It teaches us that although we have plans for our lives, God’s plans should supersede them.

Which brings us to our Take-Home Truth today:

Our Take-Home Truth is:

MARY BECAME DEDICATED TO GODS PLAN WHEN SHE PUT HER PLANS ASIDE.

Have you ever had to give up something that you planned, maybe it was a trip, a family vacation, something that meant something to you?

A few years ago there was a storm that came in during thanksgiving it left thousands of people stranded.

There also was fire in Texas, people in a two-mile radius had to leave their homes.

You see, every one of those people had other plans, yet they couldn’t do what they had planned due to circumstances beyond their control.

This is Mary.

Look back at verses 26-27:

“Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by 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.

The virgin’s name was Mary.”

What do we know about Mary?

She is young, and some people believe that she was very young, as early as 11 or 12, but I believe that she is 15 or 16 years old.

She lived in Nazareth.

She loved God and wanted to serve Him.

She was a decedent of David, and her cousins’ husband was Eli, a High Priest.

She was a virgin, and she was engaged to marry.

Now some people are romantics and think that Mary was head over heels for Joseph.

But the truth is during this time, arranged marriages were the preferred method of marriage.

This was probably an arranged marriage, but we don’t know.

What we do know is that the family was in preparation.

She was preparing to get married.