Luke 1: 26-38: 26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favour with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[b] the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
How to Fly a Tank!
One of the greatest and most quoted verses in the Bible is Luke 1:37: For no word of God will ever fail or in other versions Nothing is impossible for God
In solitude the angel appears to a young virgin girl named Mary and totally changes her world. She is getting ready for a wedding, to a local carpet named Joseph, and is probably tingling about that and what life would be like for her.
Her world is turned upside down by the proclamation that he is to have a baby, but not just any baby, the Saviour of the world.
Hope is found in the strangest of places. It is found in a young teenager’s ability to trust God for the entire world’s salvation.
Another powerful verse in this passage is this:
38: Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her. (NLT)
Isn’t this great faith and great hope too? As Phil told us last week that hope is not the same as hope we think of today - it’s not wishful thinking but a confidence in the outcome.
It is a reliance on the determination of the promise maker!
This is when the impossible not only becomes probable and plausible but also permanent!
In the middle of hopelessness God speaks hope.
How do we grasp hope?
1. Listen to what God says!
All of us have ears. Some of us choose to use them. There is a vast difference between listening and hearing!
Hearing is something most people can do. It involves sound waves entering the ear and moving the fine hear cells of the outer ear, eardrum, and sending signals though the various synapses and bones in the inner ear through nerves and fine hairs to our brains. It registers the noise.
Sound moves us!
Show video clip:
The voice of God moves us too. Unless we listen we will not be changed! Listening involves decoding the information and giving feedback.
This is what Mary did. She didn’t just hear a voice, she deciphered what this meant for her. Listening to God’s voice changes us. It gives us hope!
This is why so many in church are moved but not changed in the way we should be. We hear something but don’t listen. Even those who heard God speak to Jesus thought they heard thunder (they were moved) when it was God speaking (John 12:29).
Don’t just be moved, listen!
2. Believe what God says!
Sometimes what happens to us can defeat us and drain hope from us.
For Mary she was going to have many tough times ahead but much joy too with the privilege of raising Jesus. She even puts it to song and bursts out with praise (Luke 1: 46-55).
But sometimes our lives can feel under attack for the belief we have. It can feel like we are flying a tank!
Flying a tank is impossible right? In the 2010 movie, The A Team, the heroes find themselves in a military aircraft which is being attacked by airforce drones which destroy it. B.A. has been sedated (as per the classic TV series). Their only hope is to climb into a tank and fly it to a lake. They do this, start the engine under water, and drive out safely. I can’t show you the clip because there’s some expletives and using the name of Jesus in vain.
When I saw the film I thought, “how stupid! You can't fly a tank!”
Let me show you this clip from some scientific brains on the subject. Show clip:
So apparently you can fly a tank! Well at least control its descent.
Do you feel that you are in free fall? Believe what God says! What He said He will do He will do! He makes the impossible possible!
3. Do what God says!
Hope is realised in our obedience to God. Stay close to Him and hope abounds. Move way from Him and hope diminishes. Why? Because He is our hope!
Psalm 91:2: I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’
Where we place our trust is where we are pacing our hope. It is from there that we expect to see the return on our emotional investments. It’s from that place or person that we expect to see our deliverance, the relief from our situation.
In our trusting in God we then have to put trust int he people He places us with in life. Mary had to do this with Joseph - she had to trust at he too would be obedient to God’s will.
We know that this was not easy for him, that he struggled with it and was simply going to break off the engagement quietly [in those times betrothal was considered as binding as marriage, although the couple were not allowed to be together until after the actual wedding].
Matthew 1:18-25: 18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: his mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet[e] did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’22 All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’).24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
Joseph had to choose to be obedient. It is easier to put hope in people around us if we know that they are listening to, and obeying, God’s voice too. Don’t put trust and hope in a fool!
James 1:22: Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
4. Be what God says!
One of the things that brings us hope in strange places s hearing what God thinks about us and believing what He says. This helps us see beyond the now and look to the future.
Luke 1: 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.” …. 30 “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favour with God…. 38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”
When Mary first heard these words she was troubled but hem! Some times when we hear God speak it initially unsettles us because we all like to maintain some kind of equilibrium in our lives. If we know the voice of God the we need to also know that when He promises He delivers.
The angel speaks into Mary’s heart, not just
a promise over her womb. She is favoured. Which means that she begins to store things up in her heart. we see she does this with the shepherds visit:
Luke 2: 16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
When we grasp.what God is saying about us and the promise He gives us we begin to store hope in our hearts.
Mary is great at this. She stores up all the promises of God and that carries her through some of the darkest times a mother can know - the death of her firstborn.
She believes what is said over her by her own confession - I am the Lord’s servant (Luke 1:38).
She becomes a carrier and a courier of hope in a hopeless world.
The strangest place hope is found today is in the heart of the Born Again Christian - for it is the last place that the world looks for it! Why? Because we don’t share it!
Wrapping it Up:
Be the strange place of hope for your friends, family and loved ones this Christmas season!
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