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Chapter 1 beginning in verse 26. This is God's Word. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to the city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at this saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, Do not you know Mary? For you have found favor with God, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. And Mary said to the angel, How will this be, since I am a virgin? And the angel answered, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son and is the sixth month with her who is called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, Behold, I am a servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. Let's pray. Father as we come to your word, open our hearts and minds, help us to see anew what you have done for us. In Jesus name, Amen. Whether you call this the Christmas story or the incarnation story, if you've been in church very long, if you're a little older, you've grown up with the story whether you were in church or not. And it has a tendency to become old. And we lose some of the wonder, some of the awesomeness of it. And Jesus warned against that in the gospel. He said in Mark chapter 10, when they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, let the children come to me, do not hinder them for to such belong the kingdom of God. Truly I say whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a child will not enter it. And he took them in his arms and blessed them laying hands on them. I remember when I was a kid, Christmas was the most exciting, awesome, wonderful, inspiring day of the year. Even when I was a little older, but especially when I was a little kid. When I had figured out by the time I was eight years old that there probably wasn't really somebody with a tiny reindeer until on channel two in Detroit, they came on the television on Christmas Eve and said satellite had picked it up. And I was convinced that they would not lie to me on the news. And so I was once again filled with wonder. We're very difficult people to impress once we get older, but when we're little, we get impressed. We are in awe. We're taken by things. It doesn't seem to matter how many times they happen. One of the things that my son David and other children are family, but especially David loved was the video land before time is about little dinosaurs. And he would want to watch that every day. And it didn't matter whether he knew the story. It didn't matter how many times he had seen it. He was still riveted. He was still excited. And I think that's what Jesus is talking about when he tells us that to come like a child to not lose the wonder of the story. We get older. We think we become jaded. We become harder to impress. It's almost like if we act impressed, we're somehow being childish, which of course is what Jesus is saying. We should be. I don't know if you're old. Well, if you are old enough, no doubt, you remember where you were when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. I doubt many of us, if any of us remember where we were or what we were doing. Oh, 12 landed on the moon. Five months later and other people walked on the moon. I don't even remember their names. And by the time Apollo 13 landed on the moon in spring of 1970, nobody was watching literally. The networks had deemed it so blase that they just did a closed circuit telecast for the families at NASA. But nobody in the rest of the world was watching. It was by that time old hat for people to walk on the moon. And I think the Christmas story or the incarnation story is like that for a lot of us. What I've read to you this morning is cataclysmic. The events themselves are stupendous. The implications are as far reaching as anything that has ever happened in the universe. And when we read it, we say, yeah, yeah, I've heard that before. The familiar words are heard. Most if not all of us are not overly impressed. We're not moved, at least not in any way that correlates with the reality of the events. That's not to say we have no interest. We are here. We are listening. The story and the music is comforting. But they're intended to be so much more. I mean, it's an incredible, almost unbelievable story. That word unbelievable is probably the most overused word in the world now, especially if you watch any sports. Somebody makes a great play and they call it unbelievable. I believe it. I just saw it. I just saw three replays. It's perfectly believable, but they say unbelievable. But this story is that incredible. First an angel is sent to a woman in Galilee. That's pretty big all by itself, but it's not just any angel. I mean, there are two main head, most important angels in the Bible, Michael and Gabriel. And this is the angel Gabriel. He comes to earth to visit a woman named Mary. Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you. The Lord, Jehovah, God Almighty, the eternal God, the creator of heaven and earth is with you. For most people that would knock them over. I'm sure that was had the effect on Mary because the angel says, do not be afraid because that's the only reasonable response anybody would have when confronted with an angel, especially with Gabriel. There are so many enormous and amazing things here. You're going to have a baby. Yeah, I know you're a virgin. You're still you're going to have a baby who will be the son of God. And this is not the only amazing thing that's happening. Your cousin Elizabeth is already with child. Now, a Brazilian minister with a British accent named Rico Tice asked us to imagine that story in a modern setting. He says, Elizabeth comes to the hospital. She's experiencing labor pains. And she asked for the labor and delivery department. And the nurse says, oh, you must mean the geriatric wing. No, I want maternity. Oh, did your daughter have a baby right this way? She says, no, I'm pregnant. Oh, you need the psychiatric wing. The story is even more incredible. We consider what's happening to Mary. You're going to have a baby. Who's the son of God? God is going to come to the earth. God is going to come to the earth as a human being. He's going to be the Messiah. The God's people have been promised and have been looking for for centuries. All right. Now you might be thinking, or at least you might be thinking of someone you think would be thinking or has said to you in the past, well, people back then, they believe this sort of thing. I mean, they were pre-modern people. They thought this sort of thing was possible. They thought this sort of thing could happen. They might have believed such a mythical story. But we're modern, educated people. We know better. These things just could not have happened. Well, let me tell you, no one then believed it either. No one then believed it either. And just so you know about modern people and the things they're willing to believe, Tim Keller, when he's talking to skeptical audiences, when he was talking to skeptical audiences in New York, used to say, if you ever have time, just go back and read the New York Times from 30, 40, 50 years ago and read what it says. We now know that. We no longer believe this. We now know that. And then whatever they say, you would, you will cringe with embarrassment. But people said they now know, which they no longer believe. People then didn't believe it either. There were two primary audiences, Greeks and Jews. The Greeks believed in complete separation of God and humanity, the superiority of the gods to humans, the belief that the physical world was evil and the spiritual world was perfect. And Plato called the body the prison house of the soul. They really believed that, that the body was evil. They believed in something called the world of the forms. In other words, there was a in heaven, supposedly. There was the form of the perfect everything. There was a perfect table. There was a perfect chair. There was a perfect stand, perfect microphone. And anything in the world was simply a copy of that, but it was always imperfect. It was always sullied. It was never right because it was physical. So the Jews would not believe. It's not imaginable that the Greeks would believe a story wherein the God, the God, would take upon himself human flesh. Sure, lesser gods, possibly, but not the main God, would not take on himself human flesh. So you can discount them believing the story that God impregnated Mary. And the Jews had an even higher view of God. Viewing him so holy, they wouldn't even speak his name. The thought of him becoming a man was foreign to their thinking. So these are not people who would be likely to believe a story like this. C.S. Lewis calls this kind of thinking chronological snobbery. Because these people lived a long time ago, they were more susceptible to believe unbelievable things. Again that word. Simply not true. I remember witnessing to a young man in Boca Raton, Florida. I don't know if you've ever been to Boca Raton, Florida, but there are more New Yorkers in Boca Raton, Florida than there are Floridians. And so I was there with, at a church planning conference, I was there with a bunch of other guys and we had gone to this restaurant to have a meal and to watch the sports. This young man was wearing a Yankees cap. I talked to him anyway. But I sat down and we talked for a while and I talked to him about the gospel. He said, yeah, I don't believe any of that happened. I said, why not? He said, because it was so long ago. It was so long ago. I said, so if you go into the future, things that happen, you don't believe they happened anymore? He said, what do you mean? I said, well, we went back a little further. I said, a couple of hundred years ago, supposedly George Washington crossed the river and so on and so forth, that story. And I said, do you believe that? He goes, well, yeah, that's part of history. I said, well, so in a thousand years, are people going to not believe it because it's further away? I said, are people not going to believe that you and I had this conversation 100 years from now, 500 years from now? He said, I see what you mean. Just because something is a long time ago, it doesn't make it less true. If anything, something that has lasted the test of time is more significant. People of the first century were no more predisposed to believe that God became a man and that a virgin gave birth than people are in the 21st century and maybe even less so. And yet throughout history, hundreds of millions of people have believed that very thing. And if you're educated, intelligent person who prides themselves on critical thinking, it simply will not pass muster for you to say, well, back then people believe those things. No, they didn't. So you need to look for another explanation. Look at Jesus. Look who the Bible claims he is. The Bible claims that Jesus is God in the flesh. He will be the son of the Most High. He will be called Jesus, which means God saves. Another Christmas passage says she will give birth to his son and you are to give him the name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet. The Virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. Jesus saves his people from their sins. Forever people have been trying to find out about God. Who is he? What do you expect of us? Is there any purpose or meaning to our existence? And here we have God himself not only communicating with us, but becoming one of us. He is with God. He is God, Emmanuel in every sense of the word. But why? Now, some people say he is an example to all of us as to how we're supposed to live. I have to tell you, that doesn't do me any good. Maybe you know a family where one of the kids is great at everything. Most families have a kid that thinks he's great at everything. But every once in a while, there's a family that does have somebody who's great at everything. The best athlete, the best student, the most popular, the best looking, the best girlfriend or boyfriend. What's it like for the siblings? They may be proud of him or her, but can they measure up? For some, the pressure of comparison is just too great. So how would it help for God to show us an example and have it be perfect and then say, you are to be perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect? As an example, it would be misery because I could never do it. But what if as the Bible claims, he came to live a life for me, a life that counts for me, a life that when I stand before God, I get credit for his. How is that fair? It isn't. It's a gift. But what about my sin? He's not only God with us, he will save his people from their sins. He not only lives a life for us, he will die a death for us. I've said it probably hundreds of times if I've said it once. He lived the life that we should have lived, but didn't and couldn't, no matter how many examples I have. He died the death I should have died for the sins I've committed. What does the Bible say about him? He comes to the weak and to the outcast. He came to a teenage girl in the no account town of Nazareth. Remember Nathaniel, when he was told about Jesus coming from Nazareth, he said, can anything good come from Nazareth? His birth is announced to shepherds. Now shepherds in that day were not trustworthy people. A lot of times their word was encountered in court. He's born in humble circumstances. All the other religions in the world, God is powerful and demanding and asking us to meet his standards. Christianity is the only religion where God becomes weak and poor and lowly and suffers. So that even when you are experiencing those things, he really is still Emmanuel. God with us. God with you in the midst of your pain and frailty. Now there's some people who say all the religions are the same. They just approach it from a different point of view, but they're all going to end up in the same place. And one of the examples I've heard to illustrate this is the example of the blind men around the elephant. I don't know if you've heard this or not. So the blind man, one blind man grabs the leg of the elephant and he says, it's like a tree. It's like a big oak tree. Another man grabs the trunk and he says it's like a, it's like a python. It's like a snake. Another man grabs a tail. It says, no, no, no, it's like a rope. Another man is on the side and he's feeling the side. He goes, no, it's like a wall. And the idea is each person has a, each religion has a part of the truth, but none of them have the whole truth. What's the problem with this illustration? It assumes that the man or woman giving the illustration has the whole truth. It's what my philosophy teacher called our self referentially absurd argument because you have to assume that somebody has all of the truth for the argument to work, which of course is somebody has all the truth, the argument fails. You say, but what if doubts? Well, there's distrusting doubts and there's reasonable doubts. Remember when Zachariah was told that his wife Elizabeth was with child, he says, how shall I know this for I'm old. My wife has advanced in years. Gabriel said to him, I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God and I was sent to speak to you and to bring this news to you and behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time. And the people were waiting for Zachariah and wondering at his delay. And when he came out, he was unable to speak and they realized he had seen a vision and kept making signs to them and remain mute. There are doubts that are a diversion. I doubt because I don't really want to believe because if I believe, then I have to change. One minister quotes, Thomas Nagel, a famous atheist who put it like this. I speak from experience being strong, being strongly subject to this fear myself. I want atheism to be true and I am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and naturally hope that I'm right in my belief. It's I hope there is no God. I don't want there to be a God. I don't want the universe to be like that. Why? Because if it is like that, then he has to change or face judgment. But you see Mary's doubts are different. It's healthy to have doubts as long as they don't paralyze you. She is greatly troubled. She says, how am I supposed to have a baby? I've never known a man. That's an honest question. He wants more information. I'm willing to believe, but there's something I need to know. That those are the kind of doubts you have. Those are good doubts. She asked the angel, how is this to be since I'm a virgin? So what do we do with our doubts? Read the Bible. Ask questions. If there are honest doubts, God will deal gently with you. Little doubts? Zechariah's kind of doubts? You might hear, I'm Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God. And I'm sent to speak to you and tell you this good news. Now if you ask, then you have to be willing to submit to God's word, even if the circumstances do not look favorable. Mary's a teen. She's pregnant. She can lose her husband. Just a word about the prophecy that the virgin will be with child. Some try to say that it means a young maiden will be with child. A young woman having a baby is not a sign. There's a sign from God, the virgin will be with child. That's a sign. A young woman will have, there's eight billion people in the world. I'm not sure of the number, but let's just say. That means eight billion times there was somebody with a child. She will be outcast, always hearing the whispering and doubts. Even though Joseph married her, people can add, five months after the wedding, she has a baby. Yet she says, may it be done unto me as you have said. So what do we do? Share it with others. Sharing it with others makes us more certain of the truth, helps us understand and appreciate the full significance of the events. The God of heaven and earth became incarnate and took himself a human body like ours. Then he gave his body and blood as a sacrifice for our sins and gave us his righteousness. He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become righteousness of God in him. Father in heaven, thank you for the incarnation. Thank you that God is with us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.