Sunday Morning Service 10:30AM - Luke 1:26-38 - The Unexpected Birth of the Unexpected Savior pt 2

All right, good morning. Merry Christmas to you. Glad you're here. I want to invite you to stand with us. We'll pray and we'll get started. Father, thank you for another day. Thank you for allowing us to be here this morning, Lord, in light of the Christmas season, Lord. And just help us to remember what this year, this time of year is about. It's all about you. It's not about anything

else. It's all about your stepping away from your throne in heaven and coming to earth and living among us, Lord God, and taking our rightful place on that cross. Lord, we take this time and we offer praise to you this morning, God. And we give you thanks in Jesus' name. Amen.

You can have a seat if you'd like.

Did you guys go and stand with me for the last one?

You can have a seat if you'd like. And Father, we praise you this morning for how great you are this today, Lord God. We just thank you for how much you love us. We thank you for what you've done for us, for willingly leaving your throne in heaven and coming to earth to live among us, Lord God. And this morning, Lord, we celebrate that time. And you were born in a manger, Lord God. We celebrate this time.

And now as Pastor Ryan comes, I'll just pray that you would speak mightily through him. Give him the words to speak. Give us ears to hear and hearts to receive that word this morning. May your Holy Spirit move mightily in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's take some time and greet one another.

Good morning. If you could begin to locate your seat. Grab a bowl. We'll get ready to go over some announcements. Welcome to Calvary. I'm glad that you have joined us this morning. So things to take note of. On the left-hand side for this week, there are no midweek activities. I guess there is Monday night women's study, but other than that, no midweek activities this week. The only thing going on this week is that we have our Christmas

Eve candlelight services Wednesday at both 530 and seven. One other thing to take note of in your bulletin is that there are, well, there were when the service started, some directories available out on the table. I don't know if there still are or not. You can help yourself to one of those. More will be arriving. They just take some time to print. So she got as many as she could the other day. So over the next couple of weeks, she'll be printing

more of those. So if you didn't get one today, don't worry, there'll be more of them. And those are the main things that are going on this week. I'm looking to see, because we have children that are going to be singing to us this morning. I'm looking to see if they're heading this way.

I see any kids headed this way. I don't have anything else to announce. I can't sing for you. That's a terrible idea. I'm why we don't go Christmas caroling. Okay. Well, let's, are they headed this way? Can anybody help me out down there at that end of the hallway? One second. They're on their way. I need to stall. Should I do responsive reading first? Hey, let's do responsive reading first.

We're nothing if not flexible. For our responsive reading this morning, we are going to be in psalm 111 looking at the new american standard so that hopefully we all sound the same if you need a copy should be one in a row around you and as you are turning to psalm 111 if you would please stand in the honor of the reading of god's word if you are able i will read the odd verses if you will follow along with pastor jared in the even verses psalm 111 praise the lord i will give thanks to the lord with all my heart in the company of the upright and in the assembly great are the works of the lord they are studied by all who delight in them splendid and majestic is his work and his righteousness endures forever

he has made his wonders to be remembered the lord is gracious and compassionate he has given food to those who fear him he will remember his covenant forever he has made known to his people the power of his works and giving them the heritage of the nations the works of his hands are truth and justice all his precepts are sure they are upheld forever and ever they are performed in truth and uprightness he has sent redemption to his people he has ordained his covenant forever holy and awesome is his name the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom a good understanding have all those who do his commandments his praise endures forever and so finally and so father thank you for our time together this morning i pray that as we spend time in your

word that you would move in our hearts by the power of your holy spirit in jesus name amen you may be seated and we have children now well as i've said before most important ministry in the church right there so that was uh that was a lot of fun to hear i love hearing those little voices sing out so yes moms and dads you got to have some great kids so all right open up in your bibles to the book of luke chapter one the book of luke chapter one today we come to part two in our series the unexpected birth of the unexpected savior last week we looked at an unexpected family and we really saw ultimately that that god redeems broken stories and god redeems broken families and god redeems broken people and that's what we saw in

that genealogy of jesus is that is that god took messed up people and he redeemed them and he redeemed people and still did something really amazing with them well today we come to part two and part two of the series is the unexpected circumstances and so there's three things we're going to look at this morning we're going to look at an unexpected announcement we're going to look at an unexpected celebration and we're going to look at an unexpected discovery so we pick up in luke chapter 1 verse 26 this is what it says now in the sixth month the angel gabriel was sent from god to a city in the east and he was sent to a city in the west and he was sent to a city in the east

in galilee called nazareth to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was joseph of the descendants of david and the virgin's mary's name the virgin's name was mary and coming in he said to her greetings favored one the lord is with you but she was very perplexed at this statement and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was the angel said to her do not be afraid mary for you have found favor with god and behold you will conceive in your life a new life and you will in your womb and bear a son and you shall name him jesus and he will be great and will be called the son of the most high and the lord will give him the throne of his father david and he will

reign over the house of jacob forever his kingdom will have no end and mary said to the angel how can this thing be since i am a virgin the angel answered and said to her the holy spirit will come upon you the power of the most high will overshadow you and for that reason the holy child shall be called the son of god behold even your relative elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age and she who is called barren is now in her sixth month for nothing will be impossible with god and mary said behold the bond slave of the lord may it be done to me according to your word the angel departed from her an unexpected announcement let's create just a little bit of context on where how we've arrived in the place we are here in luke chapter one

so between the two of us we are in the place where we are in the place where we are in the book of malachi the very last of the old testament the very beginning of the new testament is the period of around 400 years they're often referred to as the 400 silent years because during that 400 year period there was no direct revelation from god no new books were written no new revelation was given if you will god was silent for those 400 years and there's an entire study you could do on the fact that god was not silent during those 400 years god was very much at work in history orchestrating all of the events that would lead up to the birth of jesus but as far as the people

were concerned god was silent and can i say i didn't intend to make this point but i think it's a point that needs to be made sometimes in our lives it feels like god is silent sometimes in our lives it feels like we're not really getting anything from the lord we don't know why god hasn't answered us we don't know why we don't feel the presence of god but even in that time when it feels like god is silent god is actually very much at work behind the scenes orchestrating everything in our lives to make sure that we're not getting anything from the lord and we're not to bring about something good for us and to glorify god and so if if you feel like god is silent right now i want you to know that he's not he's actually at work you're just not seeing it

but when when it comes to pass when it comes to fruition you will look back and you will say god was absolutely not silent even though i couldn't hear his voice during that time so at the end of those 400 silent years the very first revelation that's given of god was actually given to a guy by the name of zachariah zachariah was of the priestly order and he was there in the temple serving his priestly duty and an angel of the lord appeared and told him you're going to have a son now the thing about zachariah and his wife elizabeth is that they were barren they were not able to have kids and i always wonder just how many years zachariah and elizabeth prayed they probably heard the stories they'd heard the stories of

of of how god had provided a son miraculously to isaac or to uh to abraham how god miraculously provided a son to isaac and rebecca how god miraculously provided a son for hannah and and and all of these things they'd heard all these stories and yet for them it hadn't happened yet and so they were probably going lord where are you in all of this well it was finally time the time was right he said you're gonna have a son and you're gonna name him john and he is going to be the one who will be the forerunner of the messiah that's the beginning of luke chapter one of course zachariah didn't believe he's like whatever dude how's that going to happen and god said because you and the angel said because you didn't believe you're not going to

be able to speak until the child is born and that's exactly what happened to zachariah's so that leads us to this next part is that it's in the sixth month of elizabeth's pregnancy that's what it means when it says in the sixth month that an angel appears the angel's name is gabriel we're given that name specifically the angel gabriel appears and he appears to a young woman living in a city in the land of galilee the city was called nazareth and this young woman's name was mary we're also told that she was a virgin we're also told that she was betrothed to a man named joseph and that they were of the house in the lineage of david this young woman mary probably late teens at this point in time is about to be given one of the most

unexpected announcements she could have ever imagined i always wonder what this scene would have looked like i always wonder how this thing would have played out like like was mary just hanging out in the kitchen doing her thing was she was she working around the house what exactly was taking place was it maybe right before she went to bed and she's she's maybe having her nightly prayers i don't know what's happening in the life of mary but i know what happens in the life of mary what happens is it says that she's going to be a virgin and she's going to be a that this angel of the lord appears this is in verse 28 and coming in he said to her greetings favored one the lord is with you greetings favored one the lord is with you now we're

giving a lot of descriptions of angels in the bible and usually we think was this one of those crazy descriptions of an angel that you see like in the book of ezekiel or the book of revelation i don't think so god didn't want to totally terrify this poor young girl right 18 year old kid something with six wings and seven feet tall and she's going to be a virgin and she's going to be a virgin and she's going to be a virgin and she's going to be a virgin and she's going to have five eyes and all these things shows up she's like ah right would have been scary enough to have some dude show up in her house i think it's a very normal looking human type guy that was there that was an angel and the angel shows up and the first thing he says is you are highly

favored and the lord is with you now no matter how happy the announcement is at that point in time if i'm hanging out in my house and a random dude shows up i'm not happy about that right i don't care if he tells me i'm blessed by god i don't care if he tells me god is with me you're not supposed to be in my house right now and you're talking to me that's what happens notice notice how mary responds initially it says but she was very perplexed at this i hate this translation for this particular verse because i don't think mary was very perplexed i think she was very terrified which is actually what the word means the word means agitated or troubled she wasn't like oh my an angel i am

currently perplexed no she's freaked out right she's agitated or she's troubled because a dude just showed up in her house eyeshadow and kind of sent her out last night on the road jumping onto the road long Sim themed cars going in and out of her marriage to throw SMB's out of her house before she And it looks as if she can't find website or text wait before writing letter or not and says what that is that's sweet you're young but she's terrified that word is really uncomfortable but she's VERY pinching me going along with these peopleok Oh wow where am I THAT can i say first thing i saw in prayer is like is that she says i found favor with God and they were you have found favor with god

in the protestant church we have very much undersold how great of a woman mary must have been she had to have been such a fantastic human being for god to have chosen her to be the one through whom he would bring about the messiah she had to have been a woman of high moral character she had to have been a woman who was of great value someone who who truly could be trusted with the job that she was going to be entrusted with she had to be able to bear two incredibly great burdens you want to do great burdens that she had to bear was number one she had to bear with the burden of all of the rumors that would be told about her you ever thought about that thought that about

mary is that she lived a life that was full of rumors and none of them were true a bunch of stories were told about her her entire life from the point in time when she has jesus to the point in time when he's crucified and none of them were true you know how we know that because we know that if you jump further on into the gospel accounts you know that that the pharisee said we were not born of fornication like you so so all these rumors are being spread about mary she had to bear with the burden of high moral character she had to bear with the burden of high moral character she had to bear with the burden of high moral character she had to bear with the burden of false reports but the biggest burden that she had to bear is the knowledge that her son

would not make it past the age of 33 because he would be hated by the people that he came to save he would be tortured by the people that he came to save and he would ultimately be murdered by the people that he came to save a willing sacrifice i understand but that's a burden that she would have to bear and i believe that especially from the point in time that he started his earthly ministry until the time that jesus was crucified every day of her life was a reminder that he was born to die i think she had to have been a fantastic woman however i think that the catholic church very much gets it wrong because they believe that mary is a giver of grace but what we see here is that mary was a receiver of grace because the grace of god was upon her

and god gifted her with unmerited favor to be the one through whom would come the man who would ultimately save her from her sin and so the angel says don't be afraid you have found favor with god and this is what he tells her and behold you will conceive in your womb and you will bear a son and you shall name him jesus and he will be great and will be called the son of the most high and the lord 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 end you know what she heard you're gonna have a baby right that's all she heard after that can you imagine the amount of processing she's having

to do at this point in time have you ever thought about that first of all an angel just showed up in her house right she is still processing the fact that there is someone in her home that is not supposed to be there and she's a little terrified by it and then he said you're gonna have a baby well she's not even married yet she hasn't even had relations with a man yet how is she going to have a baby that's kind of a freaky thing and then a whole bunch of people are going to be whether there's nothing she didn't grasp in the moment that he's going to be great that he's going to be the son of the most high that of his kingdom there will be no end and he will sit on the throne

of his father david you have to understand every jewish girl at this point in time hoped that she would be the mother of the messiah she would be the mother of the one who would ultimately not only set israel free from their oppression but set israel free from their sin every jewish girl wanted that she just received it and i guarantee she struggled to process it and all she heard was you're gonna have a baby you know how i know that because my number one question would be what do you mean he's going to be the son of the most high her number one question was how am i going to have a baby right notice what she says right here she said to the angel how can this thing be since i am a virgin the angel answered and said to her the holy spirit

will come upon you the power of the most high will overshadow you and for that reason the holy child shall be called the son of god it's important that we understand a theological truth in what was just stated not only did matthew state the fact that she had never known a man but she stated the fact that she'd never known a man why is that important well remember what we discussed last week jesus had to be born of a virgin why because sin is passed down through the man sin is passed on through us fellas so in order for jesus to be the savior of man he had to be born of a virgin so he had to be born of a virgin and he had to be born of a virgin as a man but in order to for jesus to be the perfect savior he had to be born of god because

he had to be perfect but he had to be at the seat of the woman so we're told all the way back in genesis chapter 3 when the curse was laid out he said he told satan he said there will always be enmity there will always be strife between you and the woman between your seed and between her seed he you will bruise his heel but you will crush his head so it had to be of the seed of the woman but it had to be sinless therefore she had to be a virgin so she asked the question how can this thing be now i want you to think about something when zacharias asked the question what happened he couldn't talk anymore right he came out and he was like that's all he said when mary asked the question the angel answered it why because with

knowledge comes accountability see zacharias been serving the lord for years he had been in the temple knowing about the things of god for years he should have known better than to not believe what the angel had to say and he had to be a virgin so he asked the question how can this thing be and he said hey mary's brand new right she is brand new at life she is brand new at faith she is brand new at living and so when she asked the question the angel simply answers i love the way that the angel answers her he basically says i'm going to paraphrase here it's going to be miraculous he says the holy spirit will come upon you the glory of the lord shall overshadow you and you will conceive and bear a son and he will be called the son of the most high

but essentially what he says is it's going to be a miracle from god and then to reinforce the miraculous nature of what he just announced he announced something else to her he says the angel answered and said to her or excuse me in verse 36 and behold your relative elizabeth has also conceived a son in his in her old age and she who is called baron is now in her sixth month he says listen you need to understand something god's in the business of miracles what he's going to do with you is miraculous and if you don't believe me just go ask your cousin and he's going to tell you what he's going to do with you listen elizabeth because something miraculous just happened for her she who was called baron

and in her very old age is finally going to have a son because god's in the business of doing miracles and then notice what he says next for nothing will be impossible with god listen if you like to underline things if you like to star things if you like to highlight things put little smiley faces next to it hearts next to it sunbeams next to it i don't care you should put it next to that verse because that's a promise we should all claim in our lives is it nothing is impossible with god i'm going to challenge you with this at the end of the service as well but how small of a box do you put god in what what in your mind is impossible right nothing's impossible with god really do you

really think that because i guarantee that there's some people in this room myself sometimes one of them who sometimes think that there's some things that are impossible for god nothing will be impossible with god so i want you to notice how mary responds and mary said behold the bond slave of the lord may it be done to me according to your word and the angel departed in this short amount of time she processes everything that just took place not fully i don't imagine how you could fully process it in that moment but in this short amount of time she processes the appearance of an angel the fact that she's going to have a baby and it's going to be a miracle for her and she's going to have a baby and she's going to have a

miracle from god the fact that her her cousin's going to have a baby and it's a miracle from god and this baby's not just going to be any baby he's going to be the one who will sit on the throne and reign forever and ever there will be a divine nature to the baby that she's going to have and at any moment she could have said i don't want to do that that's going to be hard that's going to be difficult but she doesn't what does she do let it be done and she surrenders to what god has for her what an unexpected announcement that she receives in her life well after this unexpected announcement there's an unexpected celebration you can only imagine how her head is swimming at this point in time imagine being 18 years old and learning this

and and and all of the things that go along with it and you don't really know who you can trust with this news after all this is pretty big news you don't know who you can trust with it you don't know who's even going to be able to process it with you or who's just going to call you crazy and so she thinks what am i going to do who am i going to trust who am i going to talk to about this and she goes let's talk to the other person that has a miracle happening in their life right now let's go talk to elizabeth that's what she does so notice what happens as we look at this unexpected celebration it says now at this time mary arose and went in a hurry to the hill country

to a city of judah and he entered the house and entered the house of zacharias and greeted elizabeth and when elizabeth heard mary's greeting a baby leaped the baby leaped in her womb and elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit she cried out with a loud voice and said blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb how has it happened to me that the mother of my lord would come to me for behold when the sound of your greeting reached my ears the baby leaped in my womb for joy and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the lord there there's a lot of levels of complexity to what takes place here we'll keep it as basic as we possibly can but but mary makes a journey

she journeys into the hill country she would have had to walk probably probably a pretty long journey but she's pretty early in everything that's taking place right now mary is now or elizabeth is now six months along in her pregnancy so she's really pregnant right and um and mary goes down to visit her because she just needs to process this with somebody so she makes the journey she arrives at elizabeth's house how long it took i have no idea probably longer than we would want it to take but she arrives there and i believe by this point in time the holy spirit has already performed the miracle and that mary is pregnant i can't prove that scripturally but i feel like that that's the

case and as soon as she walks into the door do you notice what happens with elizabeth and the baby inside of her now remember the baby that elizabeth is carrying is who we refer to as john the baptist he will be the forerunner of the messiah and both elizabeth and this baby inside of the womb both celebrate the arrival of the mother of their lord but i wish she knows what it says it says let me read this to you again verse 39 at this time mary arose and went into the hill country to a city of judah and entered the house of zacharias and greeted elizabeth what did she greet her with i don't know i mean was she just like shalom because that's usually the jewish greeting at that point in time was she like hey i'm having a baby as soon as she

walked in the door which she's like you're not going to believe what someone just told me and elizabeth said i bet i will right i don't know what what the greeting was it's left very basic for us i have a feeling she just walked in the door and said shalom and the holy spirit did a powerful work you know how i know that because it says elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit two things happen the minute mary walks through the door and says greetings or says shalom peace be with you number one the baby leaped inside of her womb right the baby kicks she's like whoa look at that number two elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit and as elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit i believe the holy spirit gave her a word of

knowledge in that moment to say she's carrying the messiah you know i you know why i think that because i wish you notice what it says it says and she cried out with a loud voice first verse 42 blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your of your womb how has it happened that the mother of my lord would come to me for behold when the sound of your greeting reached my womb and blessed is she who believed that this would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the lord in that moment i believe that the holy spirit gave her that word of knowledge to know not only was she carrying the messiah not only was she carrying her lord but that she had believed

the word that the angel had sent to her all in that moment and everything was borne witness to by john the baptist leaping inside of her womb because this was an unexpected celebration listen this is one of the cool things about the work of the holy spirit because you know what the holy spirit has always been sent to do the holy spirit has always been sent to reveal to us jesus that's everything that the holy spirit we're told in the new testament is going to do matter of fact when jesus teaches on the work of the holy spirit later on in the gospel of john he says the holy spirit will bear witness of me because the holy spirit has always been bearing witness of jesus even from the time that mary was pregnant with jesus because in this moment the

holy spirit is bearing witness to the coming of the messiah you want to understand what the work of the holy spirit is the work of the holy spirit is to reveal jesus to you the work of the holy spirit is to reveal the work of jesus to you in your life because that's exactly what we see here one of the things that i love the most is that the first person to celebrate the arrival of the newborn king was an unborn baby if there's ever any question as to when life begins answered here life begins before birth life begins at the moment of conception and there's no question about that because in today's vernacular a fetus was the first one to celebrate the coming savior and i love this unexpected celebration like john was probably

just doing flips right i remember when aaron was pregnant with both girls and you could watch the wave of the baby move and it was such a fascinating thing and when you think about that wasn't just because you ate weird food that night but because jesus was there and so we see this unexpected celebration that takes place and we find out that that mary who then is going to kind of write this whole song about this moment she stays with elizabeth for about three more months probably until elizabeth has john and then she heads back home well we've seen an unexpected announcement we've seen an unexpected celebration but now let's look at an unexpected discovery go over the book of matthew chapter 1

in verse 18 matthew chapter 1 verse 18 and let's begin reading it says this starting in verse 18 now the birth of jesus christ was as follows when his mother mary had been betrothed to joseph before they came together she was found to be a child by the holy spirit and joseph her husband being a righteous man not wanting to disgrace her planned to send her away secretly and when he had considered this behold an angel of the lord appeared to him in a dream saying joseph son of david do not be afraid to take mary as your wife for the child who has been conceived in her is of the holy spirit she will bear a son and you shall call his name jesus for he will save his people from their sins

and all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the lord and he will save his people from their sins through the prophet behold the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son and they shall call his name emmanuel which translated means god with us and joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the lord commanded him and took mary as his wife but kept her a virgin until the time she gave birth to a son he called his name jesus now again let's build just a little bit of understanding here for the position that joseph finds himself in every jewish marriage actually had three parts to it at this point in time there was the engagement there was the

betrothal and then there was the actual marriage the engagement could take place really at any point in time in a young person's life usually they were arranged marriages at this point in time so at any point in time that a father of a son and a father of a daughter came together they would say hey how about three goats and two chickens he said sounds good to me let's call this thing a deal and so they arranged this marriage right that's the engagement portion it can happen at any point in time but the closer it got to the wedding came the betrothal portion the betrothal was actually a legally binding time in the marriage situation the only way a betrothal could be broken was through a certificate of divorce but the difference between the betrothal

and the actual marriage itself is that in the time of betrothal the couple didn't live together and no consummation of the marriage had taken place yet that's the time when the husband would go and he would prepare a place to bring his bride back to and then he would arrive at an unexpected time i didn't intend for that it's just the way that it is he would arrive at an unexpected time to receive the bride and take her uh to his home right so so that's kind of the way that a marriage worked at this point in time so they are in the time of the betrothal the time when they are legally bound to each other but there is to be no living together and there is to be no physical relationship

between the husband and the wife and if there was a physical relationship that took place it was and and if there was adultery that took place it could be considered a an offense punishable up to death so during this time there's a discovery you can imagine how this happens right mary receives the message probably doesn't talk to joseph goes to her cousin elizabeth's house right how long is she there three months now listen we know enough around about babies around here to know that within three months you start to notice a little something going on there right everybody kind of goes wait a second what's going on here either you ate a watermelon or you're gonna

have a baby right so that's kind of what you start to notice well she comes back and he goes uh you know what like she could pull out her cell phone at some point in time be like dear joseph i have a problem it's not really a problem but it's going to be hard to explain i'm gonna have to explain this to you sometime soon let's talk i'll give you a call she couldn't do any of that she's she's in the land of judea she can't talk to him she comes back after three months and he goes wait a second and then she says listen have an open mind i've got some news it's mainly all good news it's going to at first look like bad news you're probably going to be as stressed as i am about this but it's going to be okay

i'm going to have a baby wait nothing happened with anyone else this baby is of the holy spirit he's like show me the holy spirit all right i can take this guy out out that she's pregnant can you imagine okay i while i think sometimes the protestant church does not give mary the credit she deserves nobody gives joseph the credit he deserves right like joseph's just there everybody's like oh yeah and then there's joseph too like that dude had a hard job it's like hey by the way you're gonna have a baby the baby's not gonna be yours and you have to explain to everybody for the rest of your life that that baby's not yours but also she didn't cheat on you it's the holy spirit's baby no one's gonna

believe you right like you're just gonna look like a sucker your whole life until that guy dies and then everybody's gonna go maybe there was a little bit more to it than that but that guy had a hard job not only that but as a man you have to raise a man who ultimately created the heavens and the earth we don't give that guy enough credit and so i think he was an incredibly holy man i think he was incredibly righteous man i think it was incredibly godly man because for jesus to be raised as a sinless person there was a point in time in which the law had to be kept for him by his parents because there were certain things of the law that were done almost from the day a child was born to him and he was raised as a man

within eight days that if the parents weren't righteous enough he would not have kept the whole law so he had to have really good parents and this the birth of jesus and then one incident in the temple when jesus was like 12 or 13 years old is all that you read about joseph other than that you never hear about him again in scripture most believe that joseph died sometime before jesus's earthly ministry began but that guy had to be raised as a man a phenomenal human being if nothing else because of this scene right here and so joseph is now faced with a stress what is he going to do with what's laid out in front of him his wife his soon-to-be wife is pregnant it's not his which he probably can't explain apparently it's not somebody else's

which he definitely can't explain and now he needs to know what to do with mary so he comes up with this plan as he bears the burden of this he comes up with this plan i'm just going to discreetly put her away divorce her secretly and then hopefully we can just go our separate ways she can go someplace where maybe she can start a new life somewhere and we'll just move on with our lives i think that joseph truly loved mary this was more than just a marriage of convenience or a married or a marriage of arrangement i think he really loved her and i think it's seen in this scene right here that he truly cared about this woman and so as he's bearing the burden of this and probably praying and seeking the lord and hoping for some sort of a

message this is what happens verse 20 but when he had considered this behold an angel of the lord appeared to him in a dream saying joseph son of david don't be afraid to take mary as your wife for the child who has been conceived in her is of the holy spirit she will bear his son and you will call his name jesus for he will save his people from their sins now joseph i think gets out a little bit easy on this he has a dream with an angel in it right i think god knew at this point in time his heart can't handle more than this right like if an angel shows up that's it game over for him and i need him around so the angel of the lord shows up in a dream the angel says joseph don't don't worry first of all the story

is true okay i think what mary's telling you is true because i can't believe that there wasn't something in the back of joseph's mind that made him doubt the story i can't imagine that not being the case he says first of all the story is true because i can't believe that there wasn't something in the back of joseph's mind that made him doubt the story is true it's okay this is of god second of all don't be afraid to take her as your wife you bear that burden you bear the burden of all of the stories that are going to be told don't be afraid to take her as as your wife because she's going to have a son and you're going to call his name jesus here's the fun thing about the name

jesus we we hear the name jesus and we think of all of the songs that go with it and everything else do you know what the name jesus was in jewish culture the name jesus is the name of jesus and it's the greek transliteration of the hebrew word joshua now all of a sudden you kind of go oh right like they actually gave him a very common name at this point in time his name is to be joshua but you know what the name joshua and jesus actually means joshua yoshua yahweh is salvation that's what that name means and so when they were given the name of jesus that that was his character and that was his nature he would be the one who is the savior which is why he says and you will call his name jesus

because he will save his people from their sin he will be ultimately the savior of the world joseph that's your job that's why he said don't be afraid don't be afraid to raise this kid don't be afraid to be the man in his life that he needs for you to be i know it's an unexpected discovery this is not what you had planned this was not on your bingo card this was not according to the life book that you had laid out but it's what i have for you and this is what i need you to do he said not only that but it's going to fulfill the purpose of your life because he will save his people from their sin you will save him it's not about the woman or her son or her woman even you will save him from his прин справ however

you hate him the only thing that's worth thinking about is what's going to do right so that you are somebody who will make you see yourself in the right light that's not going to want you to be the one who is going to protect or being a fighter who was znajduing you and i won't lie to you i just wanted to warn you that if a man are showing you that he belongs you should choose him in the in situations like this and run as fast and as far as they can. And sorry, fellas, that's who we are. We dine out on responsibility. So what he could have done?

Nope, I'm out. That's hard. I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to deal with the responsibility. I don't want to deal with the pressure. I don't want to deal with how hard it is. I'm going to leave Mary on her own. Too many men do that in this culture. And men, we got to step up and quit being those kind of guys. It's neither here nor there. But that could have been what Joseph did.

He could have run as far and as fast as he wanted to. And not deal with all of that. Or he can stick around and surrender to the plan that God has for him and do what God has called for him to do. Perhaps you have taken option A before. Perhaps God has called you to do things and you've taken option A and you've run as fast and as far as you possibly could because it's going to be hard to do what you have to do.

It's going to be hard to take the responsibility. It's going to be hard to heal the marriage. It's going to be hard. It's going to be hard to face the consequences. It's going to be hard to do the thing that God calls you to do. Here's the thing. God always calls us to do hard things, but he always gives us what we need to do it. Perhaps you've taken option A.

But you know as well as I do that when you run from what God wants for you to do, he will not leave you alone because he loves you too much. Remember what David said in Psalm 23? His mercy and grace shall pursue me. That's what that word actually means. In the Old King James, it says they shall follow me, but that word literally means to pursue all the days of my life.

And you can keep running from God as much as you want to. You can try to take every boat away from Nineveh that you want to. You can avoid all the responsibility that you want to, but God will keep chasing you down because he loves you too much to leave you alone. And so he didn't take option A. He took option B. The right. The right plan. And he jumped in there and said,

let's do this thing. He wakes up from his dream. He has a renewed vision. He has a renewed purpose. He has a renewed desire to follow God. And so he takes Mary as his wife. He still keeps her as a virgin until the day that Jesus is born. And this unexpected discovery turns into one of the greatest stories of his life. Well, as I worked through these three stories with the unexpected announcement,

the unexpected, the unexpected celebration of the unexpected discovery, I came up with three things that I think we need to pay attention to. Three lessons on the unexpected. Number one, God is always doing the unexpected. God is always doing the unexpected. That's exactly what he did with the first coming of Jesus. It's what he'll do with the second coming of Jesus,

but it's what he keeps doing in our lives in general. God loves to do the most unexpected things with the most unexpected people to either shock you, surprise you, use you, whatever it is. God will keep doing the unexpected in our lives. Oftentimes, it's the really positive things that he does where you're like, man, I didn't see that coming at all. But look at what God did.

I didn't expect God to do that, but look at what he did. With first service, I reminded them of the story of my wife and I arriving down here in Ark City. So we moved down here almost 16 years ago now. And around the time that Violet was born, 2008, Ark City, Christian Academy reached out to us. I was pretty unhappy in my job and they reached out to us and said,

hey, would you like to come teach here? We can pay you almost nothing. And we were like, hmm, and we won't give you insurance. Like, hmm, I mean, that sounds awesome. Probably not. So what we did is we sat on our back deck one evening and we, we created an unexpected scenario. We said, if the school can pay a little salary, they had a house that sometimes they would allow people to live in.

If they could allow us to live in that house, as a part, of our salary. If the church could pay me a little something, because I had a desire to come back down here and be on staff at church. And if the church could provide insurance for us, then we could make it work. It would still be tight, but we could make it work. And then we laughed and laughed because that was the most ridiculous scenario

anybody could ever imagine. About a year later, 2009, I got laid off from my job. I was working construction, pretty good job. I didn't really like it, but I made pretty good money. But I got laid off. And around that time I had come down here to fill in at church for a Sunday morning for Pastor Mark. His wife was battling ALS at that point in time. And so I came down and filled in for him.

And after I came down and filled in, they knew that I got laid off. They had an emergency board meeting and said, I think we want to bring Ryan on staff down here. And so he called me, Pastor Mark did. And he said, here's the thing. I think if we string some things together, this could work, but we'd like for you to come down, come to work for us. We can pay you a little bit of a salary,

not very much. We can pay you a little bit. We can cover your insurance. The school would like to hire you as well. They can pay you a little bit. And they've already said that they will let you live in the house for free. And all of the things that we had not told a single soul about God worked out. And we were like, Oh, that is so unexpected. So we're planning on that.

We didn't think that that would ever happen, but that's what God does. God's always doing the unexpected. And I've seen him do it with that. I've seen him do it with people's lives. I've watched people get saved here recently. I'm like, I did not expect that at all. I've watched people go from, from completely opposed to the things of God to now they're not only pursuing God with all of their heart,

but they're witnessing to all of the people around them as well. And it's like, man, that is so unexpected. But listen, sometimes the unexpected things that God does, they look negative in the beginning. Sometimes the unexpected things that he does, they don't look like a good thing at first. And you're like, Lord, I don't understand why you did that. I don't understand why you allowed that.

I don't understand why that unexpected thing came into my life. I tell you, begin to, work through it. And then you look back and you go, actually, if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't know God the way that I do. I wouldn't have the understanding of who he is. If that had not happened in my life, I've been sharing some of those stories with, with a couple of people here recently about what God's done over the years in my walk with Jesus Christ and how through very unexpected things,

sometimes positive, sometimes negative. God has ultimately brought really good things about because of it, because listen, God is always doing the unexpected. Number two, the unexpected is always beyond my ability. The unexpected is always beyond my ability. And we just have to realize that when God calls us to do something that we weren't planning on him on us doing,

or him doing through us, it's always more than I can do. It's always be on. I don't have the giftings for it. I don't have the talents for it. I don't have the ability for it. I'm not smart enough to do that. Sweet Jesus, I'm not smart enough to do that, right? And God says, I know. That's why I called you. I called you because it is beyond your ability because I'm the only one that's going to get glory out of it.

There's such a fantastic story in the Old Testament, the story of Gideon, right? Gideon is one of my favorite stories. Gideon is supposed to gather an army, the most scared guy in the world, right? Like the most scared guy in the kingdom. And God says, I'm going to use you. He was hiding from the enemy at the time. He says, I'm going to use you. I want you to gather an army.

So he gathers an army that's still about a third of the size of the army that they're supposed to go against. And God says, that's too many. Whittle them down. So he whittles them down again to a few thousand, still a fraction of the army that he has to go against. And God says, that's still too many. And then God says something very interesting to him. He says, I know the heart of this people,

that if there's any chance that they could take the glory for the victory, they will. Whittle them down further. So he gets them down to 300. The original 300 that actually won the battle. He whittles them down to 300 and God says, now, now I can use you. Now I'm going to bring about a great victory. Why? Because it was 100% beyond their ability. The great thing about God is he calls us to do things

we could never do, gives us everything that we need to do them, and still does the most, most miraculous thing in the world so that when all is said and done, we go, I don't know how it happened. God's just really good because it's always beyond my ability. How big is your God? Or maybe a better question is, how big is the box that you've put God in? Are you expecting God to do unexpected things?

Is God limited by your ability? Because I would tell you that God is not, and he wants to get you out. He wants you to get him outside of the box that you've put him in. He wants you to get him out of the box that you've put him in. He wants you to get him out of the box that you've put him in. Unleash him and watch him do something miraculous, something that you've never seen before,

something that you can't even imagine, because that's what God wants to do. Because when God does the unexpected, it's always beyond my ability. So number one, God's always doing the unexpected. Number two, the unexpected is always beyond my ability. But number three, the unexpected simply requires faith and surrender. The unexpected simply requires faith and surrender.

Do you notice how Mary responded? Okay, Lord, whatever you want to do, I believe you, I'm going to surrender to you. Do you notice how Joseph responded? Okay, Lord, whatever you want to do, I'm going to believe you, and I'm going to surrender to you. Do you know what God wants you to do when he starts calling you to do something crazy and unexpected? He wants you to say,

Okay, God, I believe you. I'll do what you want me to do. You know the first step you take in that in your life? The first step you take in that is salvation. That is the first time, that you approach God with faith and surrender. I've been talking to somebody about Jesus here recently, and eventually I'm going to have to get them to the point where I say, Now you're going to have to make a choice.

You're either going to believe God and surrender your life to him, or you're going to not believe God and you're going to refuse to surrender your life to him. But you have to make that choice. Because eventually, when it comes to salvation, you have to make a decision. Are you going to follow Jesus, or are you not going to follow Jesus? And there's some people in here

that maybe need to make that decision for the first time in their life. You need to decide, Am I going to believe what God says, that I'm a great sinner and he's a great savior and I'm going to surrender my life to him? Or am I just going to keep showing up to church and playing the game? Only you can make that decision. But that's not the only time you make that decision.

That's just the first time you make that decision. Now the rest of your life in walking with Jesus is a continual process of faith and surrender. I believe you. I believe what you say. I'm going to surrender to it. I believe what you're telling me, so I'm going to surrender to it. Listen, sometimes surrendering is surrendering to God doing the great miracle.

And sometimes surrendering is surrendering to God saying no to that great miracle because he has something else. Either way, it requires faith and surrender. And that's what God's asking of you this morning. The entire story that we look at this time of year is a story of faith and surrender. On the part of Jesus to lay aside his glory and come down and dwell among us.

On the part of Mary to decide that she's going to take on a task that will ultimately break her heart. On the part of Joseph that will require him to take on a task that's more than he could have ever imagined. It all required the same thing. Faith and surrender. What's God doing in your life today? Because God wants to do something very unexpected. Amen? Let's all stand.

I'm looking forward to seeing all of you on Christmas Eve to finish up this series. Just so you are aware, I will be gone next weekend. I'm taking a little time off because that's some faith and surrender on my part. Some time off to let God do his work in me for a little while. Then I will be back right after the first of the year. Raring to go. Geeked up as ever.

But we're going to do Christmas Eve first. So, if you would bow with me. Father, we come to you now. And Lord, I thank you for the time that we've had here this morning. Lord, I thank you for your word. I thank you for these examples that are given to us in your word. But Lord, more than anything, I thank you for Jesus. Who laid aside his glory to be born as a baby

so that he could ultimately become the sacrifice so that he could not only be God with us, but that he could also be God who saves us. And so, Father, be with us as we go out from here. Give us hearts to perceive and minds to take in exactly what you want us to from the work of your Holy Spirit and your word this morning. In Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed. Holy

The stars are brightly shining It is the night of our dear Savior's birth It's worth the three dreams of sound Father, we thank you for another day. Thank you for your word this morning, Lord. I just ask your blessing upon us as we leave here today, Lord, and just help us to remember what this season is all about. It's all about you, Jesus. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name.

Amen. Merry Christmas, everybody. Love you.