Listening to the Announcements of His Coming
Luke 1:5-13 [Luke 1:31-37; Matt. 1:18-20]
*Ill.—A man was driving down the street when he suddenly thought of something that sent cold chills down his spine. (Has that ever happened to you?) It dawned on him that the day before had been his wife’s birthday, and he had forgotten all about it. He had not given her a gift; he had not given her a card; he had not even said a single word to her about her birthday.
So, in a panic, he pulled into a nearby jewelry store. When a clerk approached him, he said frantically, “I need your help. Yesterday was my wife’s birthday, and I forgot all about it. I want to get something very expensive to give her to make up for this.”
The clerk shook her head and said, “Sir, I’m sorry. We don’t have anything that expensive.”
Forgetting the birthday of someone close to you is a serious thing.
It is even more serious when we forget the birthday of our Lord.
It’s serious when we go through all the routines and activities of this season of the year, but never really focus on the centerpiece of this entire season—the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
It was in the fullness of time that God decided to send forth His Son.
And so, the Lord began announcing His coming.
The announcements, however, were more than just announcements of the fact of His coming.
These announcements were also words of counsel to those who would play the major roles in this great drama.
These announcements would prepare them for His coming.
They are also words of counsel to us.
We need to listen carefully and let them prepare us so we will be ready for His coming at this season.
There is a reminder in the first announcement that
I. God Hears the Prayers of His People
A. The first announcement was made to Zechariah, who would become the father of John the Baptist.
1. The lives of John and Jesus were intertwined.
a. John’s mother and Jesus’ mother were cousins.
b. John would begin a revival that would prepare the way for the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus.
c. John would baptize Jesus to mark the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.
d. And here, in Luke 1, the coming births of John and Jesus were both announced by the angel.
2. Zechariah was a priest, and his wife was named Elizabeth
3. They were both deeply committed to God, but there was a deep sorrow in their lives.
Luke 1:6-7—“Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commandments and regulations blamelessly. But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well along in years.”
4. They had prayed to God many times for a child, but no child had ever come.
*Ill.—When Betty Guthrie’s granddaughter Robbi was three years old, Betty was trying to teach her the importance of obeying her parents the first time they told her to do something. She told her it was important not to make her parents keep saying something several times before she did it. So, when Betty was keeping Robbi one day, several times during the day she praised her for doing something the first time that she had asked her to do it.
Later, while the two of them were sitting on the front porch, it began raining. As it was raining, Betty told her granddaughter that she had asked God to give them a rain and that He had answered her prayer.
“Yes,” Robbi said, “and He did it the first time you asked Him.”
5. He doesn’t always do it the first time you ask Him.
6. Zechariah and Elizabeth had asked many times for a child, but to this point, no child had been given to them.
B. And then one day Zechariah went into the Temple.
1. It was his week to work at the Temple in Jerusalem, and during the week he was chosen by lot to carry incense into the temple and pour it on the little golden altar before the veil.
Verse 10: “And when the time for the burning of the incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.”
2. When Zechariah poured the perfume on coals of the altar of incense, the cloud of incense rose from the golden altar and made its way around the great veil into the Holy of Holies symbolizing the prayers of Zechariah and all of the people going into the presence of God.
3. It was at that very moment that the angel appeared to him.
Vv. 11-13: “Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John.”
4. “Your prayer has been heard.”
5. After all these years, and all these tears, his prayer had been heard.
C. I want you to know today that God hears the prayers of His people.
1. As the people of Israel cried out to God for relief from their burdens, He heard their prayer.
2. As Zechariah and Elizabeth cried out to God for a son, He heard their prayer.
3. And God will hear your prayer!
*Ill.—Cregg Puckett wrote a devotion that is entitled “One More Prayer.” In the devotion, he used a story told by A. B. Simpson of a great bell that had been taken from a temple in Rangoon during a war and had been sunk in the river. It was the largest and finest bell in the country.
After the war was over, various experts tried to lift the bell from the river, but all of them failed. Finally, an old priest asked for permission to try. When permission was granted, he had his assistants gather a huge number of bamboo poles. One by one the poles were fastened to the bell at the bottom of the river. After thousands of them had been fastened, the bell began to move. Finally, when the last bamboo pole was attached, the buoyancy of the accumulated poles lifted the bell from the mire of the river bottom to the surface.
A.B. Simpson said, “Every prayer is like one of those bamboo poles. For a long time it may seem that your prayers are in vain. But you cannot quit praying. You never know when ‘One More Prayer’ will be the one that makes the difference.”
Who knows how many prayers Zechariah and Elizabeth had prayed for a child?
But a day came when God said, “Your prayer has been heard.”
Don’t stop praying.
I want you to know that God hears the prayers of His people!
We need to listen to the announcements of His coming.
When we do, we will be reminded that
II. Nothing Is Impossible with God
A. That was the word from God in the announcement to Mary
1. Six months after the announcement to Zechariah in the Temple in Jerusalem, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee.
2. The angel appeared to a virgin named Mary who was pledged to be married to a man named Joseph.
3. The angel announced to Mary that she had been chosen by God to bear the Messiah.
4. Mary saw no way that such a thing would ever happen.
Luke 1:34—“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
5. Or, translated, what she meant was, “That’s impossible. No way that could ever happen.”
B. In our lives, we all face the challenge of things that seem to be impossibilities.
1. You have your own list of things this morning that, from your present vantage point in life, seem absolutely impossible.
2. There are things small and great that leave you a little overwhelmed this morning.
3. You may feel overwhelmed by all that you have to do between now and Christmas.
a. We all tend to put far too many things on the schedule at this season of the year.
b. We make too many commitments and take on too many responsibilities.
c. Most of this is self-inflicted.
d. We expect so much. We want to have a perfect Christmas.
4. Or, it may be a lot of weightier challenges that you face.
a. Big things that are very important to you.
b. But the sheer weight of the challenges is overwhelming.
*Ill.—Scientists announced an exciting discovery this week. They have discovered a planet that they named Kepler 22-B, where they think life may be possible. They say that the planet is in the “Goldilocks Zone.” Remember Goldilocks? She is the one who went to the house of the three bears and found one bowl of porridge too hot and another too cold, but the little bear’s bowl of porridge was “just right.” She tried the three chairs. Papa bear’s chair was too hard; Mama bear’s chair was too soft; but baby bear’s chair was “just right.” She went upstairs and found three beds. Papa bear’s bed was too hard, and Mama bear’s bed was too soft. But baby bear’s bed was “just right.”
This planet they discovered is in the “Goldilocks zone.” It is orbiting a star like our own sun, at a distance where the temperatures are not too extreme, not too hot and not too cold. But “just right.”
We are always looking for the “Goldilocks zone” in our own lives.
We don’t want life to be too hot or too cold, too hard or too soft. We want it to be “just right.”
We are always looking for that place in life, but I want you to know that finding the place where everything is “just right” at Christmas or any other time is a hard thing to do.
We face big challenges.
We are like Mary. We face things that are seemingly impossible.
C. But this is what the angel said to Mary:
Luke 1:35-37: “The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.”
1. If there is anything that we can learn from this season of miracles, it is that “nothing is impossible with God.”
2. I don’t know every challenge that you face today, but I know something else.
3. I know that “Nothing is impossible with God.”
That changes everything, doesn’t it.
*Ill.—In an old “Pogo” comic strip, that little philosopher was addressing a big gathering of the forest animals. He was saying to them, “Gentlemen, we are surrounded by insurmountable opportunities.”
When we face life with God, then the things that seem insurmountable can become “insurmountable opportunities.”
We need to listen to these announcements of His coming.
When we do, we will also hear this counsel from God. It is
III. Do Not Be Afraid
A. The announcement to Joseph
1. In this first Christmas drama, there was once central figure, who was initially left out of the loop.
2. It was Joseph.
3. Luke mentioned in the account of Gabriel’s appearance to Mary that she was “pledged to be married to a man named Joseph,” but the angel did not appear to Joseph at that time.
4. In fact, Mary left Nazareth immediately after the visit by Gabriel and went to Judea to stay with her cousin Elizabeth who was already six months pregnant with John.
5. When Elizabeth gave birth to John, Mary came back to Nazareth.
6. When she got back to Nazareth, she saw Joseph and tried to tell him what had happened to her, but he did not believe her.
7. She broke his heart and turned his world upside down. He immediately began making plans to put an end to their pledge to be married.
8. It was then that an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and made the announcement of the birth of Jesus to Joseph:
Matt. 1:20-21: “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. 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.’”
9. Each of the times when the angel appeared to Zechariah, to Mary, and now to Joseph, the first thing he said to each of them was, “Do not be afraid.”
B. Fear is something with which we all do battle.
1. It comes at us in many different forms and at many different times in life.
*Ill.—On the evening before D-Day during World War II, the captain of a Navy vessel called his men together to prepare them for crossing the English Channel. He knew they most of them were very fearful about what lay ahead, so he tried to encourage them by saying, “When you stop to think about it, fear is a very healthy thing.”
One of the sailors leaned over to his buddy and said, “If fear is a healthy thing, then I’m the healthiest man in the Navy.”
2. If fear is a healthy thing, then several of us might be candidates for the title of the healthiest person on earth.
3. Fear dogs our steps; it hinders our service; it cripples our usefulness.
4. So, the angel said to Joseph and to all of us, “Do not be afraid.”
C. Specifically, the angel said to Joseph in verse 20: “Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”
1.Don’t be afraid to begin this great venture with Mary and with me.
2. It is the greatest venture in the history of the world.
v. 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.”
3. Beyond that, God gave no specific details about what lay ahead.
4. He was inviting Joseph to walk into the future with faith, not fear.
5. He was calling Joseph to trust himself and his future to God.
D. That’s what he’s calling us to do as well.
1. The God who went before Joseph every step of the way to meet His needs is the God who goes before us.
2. Christmas shows us that He can be trusted.
3. The God who met all of Joseph’s needs is the God who will meet all of our needs.
*Ill.—A little boy was on a plane that was experiencing violent turbulence. The plane was bucking and pitching as it encountered the updrafts and downdrafts.
A lady on board was terrified. She was afraid that at any minute the plane would crash. In the seat right next to her was a little boy who was happily playing and having fun. This irritated the woman who was so frightened so finally she said to him, “How can you have so much fun when the planr is going through this storm?”
The little boy responded, “We don’t have anything to be afraid of. My Father is the pilot of this plane.”
You may be going through a storm today.
You may be facing things that frighten you.
I invite you to fresh faith and trust because I want you to know that our Father is in charge of this plane.
Conclusion:
We are always making announcements at church. Have you noticed?
So, I’d like to conclude this sermon with some announcements.
They are some announcements that God made before that first Christmas, and they are the announcements that I would like to make before this Christmas.
I invite you to listen to them. Here they are:
1. Your heavenly Father hears the prayers of His people.
2. Nothing is impossible with God.
3. Don’t be afraid.
What is your response to these announcements today?
