Date: 22 December 2024, 9.30 am
Speaker: Ps Luwin Wong Sermon Text: Luke 1:16-45
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TRANSCRIPT
When you reach a certain age, where you get invited to a lot of baby celebrations, 1st month, 100 days, sort of things. And so you go shopping for a gift for the baby. But if you’re a newborn, you don’t need many things; you don’t need toys, you don’t need gadgets, so clothes seem the most practical gift idea.
And when you shop for baby clothes, every so often you see something like this: “Born to be wild”.
Anybody who has had children can testify the truthfulness of this statement. That’s what my mom said about me, once upon a time.
Then I grew up, and in my teenage years, this is how I felt: “Born to play football, forced to go to school”.
Recess bell rings, take the ball, play football. After school, take the ball, play football, Weekends, go void deck, play football.
I turned 40 last week, and this is how I feel these days:
Still born to be wild, but please, let’s keep it sensible.
I meet my friends for dinner on a Saturday night, after dinner, they want to go for drinks, I say, “cannot I got church tmr”, they said, “we also got church”. I say, “yea, but I’m preaching. Cannot sit on the pew and, you know….”
There is movie titled “The Man who knew Infinity”. It is a biographical drama based on the life of Srinivasa Ramanujan.
In 1887, Ramanujan was born in his grandmother’s home in Tamil Nadu, Southern India, to a family of very modest means.
When he first encountered formal mathematics at the age of 10, he was so captured by the subject, he pretty much lost interest in everything else. By age 11, he was devouring college level textbooks on advanced mathematics. By age 13, having mastered most of what he read, he began producing sophisticated theorems of his own.
Ramanujan’s genius was eventually discovered, and he was recommended by a famed mathematician, GH Hardy to research at Cambridge. When the Cambridge Mathematicians first read his manuscripts, most of them thought he was a fraud, because they were convinced that no one without a background in mathematics could have written them. And Ramanujan did not even have a college degree.
Ramanujan died, owing to health issues, in 1920, at the young age 32. Today, over 100 years later, mathematicians are still trying to catch up to his works of genius.
It would not be far-fetched to say that “Srinivasa Ramanujan was born to do mathematics”. As Picasso was born to paint, and Beethoven to create music.
Sometimes, one’s destiny, one’s life purpose is so clear, so evident you can say, “he or she was born to do this.”
In our text today, we are introduced to a child who was born to bless. A child born 2000 years ago in Bethlehem, was born to be a blessing.
Now, you might say, “Okay, but what has that got to do with me? 2000 years is a long time ago, Bethlehem is a far away place. How is this child’s blessing relevant to me, why am I need of it? We are sufficiently blessed in comfy Singapore, are we not? Why do I need this blessing?”
Well, I’m glad you asked. The reason the birth of this child is relevant is because the world is under a curse. Luwin, we are on the cusp of 2025, and you are talking about “curses”?
Yes, I am. All of us, religious or otherwise, can all agree, I’m sure, on this: That there is something fundamentally wrong with this world. Something deeply unsatisfactory about this world we live in, and of humanity itself.
Our anger that hurts our loved ones, our pride that ruins relationship, our lies that destroys intimacy. And death that cruelly severs even the best of unions. We lament, we mourn, our lived experience at times even leads us to despair.
And if we pay heed to our pain, it tell us: “there is something disconcerting with this world, there is something disappointing with this, there is something disheartening about it. This world is not all that it should be”.
That my friends, is what I mean when I say the world is cursed. It is evidence of the curse. The bible calls it sin.
Sin has so impacted the world, and so infected our hearts, we see its effects everywhere around us, in the form of suffering and death and even in our hearts, in the form of anger and pride.
And so we would do well to not so easily dismiss the news that a child was born to bring blessing to a cursed world. For if it is true, it is good news for the world, and good news for each and every one of us in it.
We know this as the good news of Jesus Christ, the child born to bless.
Shall we pray, as we look into the Word of God today.
Heavenly Father,
By your Holy Spirit, open up the eyes of our hearts, that we might behold your blessed Son, in your precious Word.
In Jesus name, we pray,
Amen.
Since our text today is about him, let’s begin with the question, “Who is Jesus?”
Our text opens this way:
LUKE 1:26-30 26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” 29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. 30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a virgin called Mary. Before we even learn her name, the text introduces her twice as a “virgin”. Why is this important? Because Gabriel was sent to Mary to inform her that she will be with child. It is setting us up for what is to come – the miracle birth.
Angel Gabriel’s greets Mary “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”
And how does Mary respond? “Greetings to you, Gabriel! Thank you for the assurance, please convey my warmest regards to God!”
“But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.”
Our culture, it seems, have grown up with the idea that religion is an opiate for the masses, a psychological crutch for the weak-minded, that the concept of God is comforting fantasy for those in need of one.
The reality, however, is quite the opposite. Those who acknowledge that there is a God, know how terrifying that reality truly is. By default, it neither comfortable nor safe to be confronted by God. God makes you feel small, he makes you realise that you are not in control, the reality of God represents the possibility that your life can be turned upside-down with a single greeting from God.
Mary is greatly troubled, not because she doesn’t know God, but because she does.
30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”
Then comes the announcement:
LUKE 1:31-33 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
LUKE 1:34-35 34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” 35 And the angel answered her, “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.
Who is Jesus?
The angel Gabriel’s announcement alone presents three identities to us.
First, he’s called the Son of God, the son of the Most High.
Second, he’s referred to as the son of David, “God will give to him the throne of his father David”.
Third, he’s the son of Joseph, to whom Mary is betrothed, as we read in our opening verse.
So, who is Jesus?
Is he the Son of God,
Is he the Son of David, or
Is he the Son of Joseph?
The answer that the Bible gives us is “all of the above”.
What does it mean?
First, Jesus is the son of God because he is born of the Holy Spirit.
“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.
In other words, is of divine origin. He is by nature God. He isn’t just a godly man, He is God himself.
The Nicene creed puts it this way.
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
And this son of God is sent from God to us, as a child for a purpose. To bless us by saving us.
That is what is what the name “Jesus means”. It means “God saves”.
Jesus is the Son of God, the Saviour.
And he is also called the Son of David.
The David in question is King David, Israel’s greatest King. The boy who slew Goliath.
Which is why, in the same breath, Angel Gabriel, speaks of Jesus inheriting a Kingdom.
And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
It means that Jesus was born, not with a silver spoon in his mouth, but with a golden sceptre in his hand. He was born to rule, to rule the sons of man.
Hang on a minute, you say, “You said he was born to bless, now you say he is born to rule”. That’s a bait and switch. I like the idea of being blessed, I don’t like being ruled.
What if told you that there being ruled and being blessed are complementary rather than contradictory?
Think about it. Why are the bookshelves of bookstores stacked with self-help books? Because we are looking for good advice to follow, for good rules to live by, believing that by them, our lives might flourish.
A book by Jordan Peterson, unblushingly titled “12 Rules of Life” at $25 a piece, sold 10 million of copies within 4 years of its release. That’s 6,700 copies each day. We want rules for life.
Why do athletes pay good money for good coaches? Because good coaches offer good rules – what to eat, when to rest, how to swing your racket, how to kick a ball – these rules, help make an athlete better, than he or she would be without those rules. The same reason there is a profession called a “life coach”.
Why, when faced with a dilemma, do we call a trusted friend, asking them for their advice? You trust in the wisdom and goodness of your friend, and you say, “What should I do? Tell me what do?” Because you believe that following your friend’s advice would lead to better outcomes than going at it by yourself.
I put it to you, friends, that we are all striving to live a good life, a blessed life, and we are doing so, not least by looking for someone to give us guidance, to give us rules.
But not just anyone, we are looking for someone who knows us, someone who is wise, someone whom we can trust, someone who loves us and wants what is best for us.
And if we are fortunate enough to find that someone in our lives today, what do we say, we say, “this person has been a blessing to me”, “I have been so blessed by our relationship”, do we not?
Jesus, as the son of David, claims to be that someone who rules over us, and we can trust that his rule will be a blessing because Jesus, is no less than the son of God, sent to save us.
Friends, “being blessed” and “being ruled” are more complementary than they are contradictory. In Jesus, they are met.
Third, Jesus is the son of Joseph.
Luke himself, who wrote this book, opens Jesus’s genealogy like this:
LUKE 3:23 23 Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph,
Joseph is a man, just like one of us, a human being. And that is what Jesus is, a human being.
And as a human being, he is united with humanity. He is close to us, bone and flesh like us, Jesus Christ, the son of man, is one of us.
This means the rules apply to him too.
It is easy to for a God in heaven to lay down rules for mankind on earth, and we haven’t a clue if the same rules apply to him. But in Christ we do. The rules that God has given for man to live by, Christ the son of man lived by them.
He calls us to love our neighbour and he did. He calls to love our enemies and he did. He calls us to forgive our brother 7x77 times over, and he did, he still does. He calls us to carry our cross, and he did. He calls us to lay down our lives for our brothers, and on a hill called Calvary, he did.
Whatever God is calling us to do, Jesus did it. He did it first, he did it completely. He did it perfectly.
So, when Christians describe the Christian life, we call it discipleship. It is not so much about obeying an abstract set of rules, as it is following in the footsteps of one who has walked the path before us.
And it also means that Jesus the son of Man can represent us. He can re-present mankind. His acts of love and obedience and sacrifice as a man, therefore, can be done on our behalf, on our account, in our place. His death can be our death, his resurrection our resurrection, his righteousness, our righteousness. He is one of us.
So, in summary, “who is Jesus?”
Jesus is the Son of God, to save us. Jesus is the Son of David, to rule us. Jesus is the Son of Man, to represent us.
That’s our next question. How should respond to Jesus?
How ought we to respond to Jesus Christ, the son of God, the son of David, the son of Man?
And I would like to first address my fellow Christians. The spiritual, spirit-filled people of God. Because that’s first response the text offers us.
So how do the Spiritual respond?
Let us see.
LUKE 1:36, 39-41
39 In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, 40 and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb.
The baby leaped in her womb. This isn’t your regular random baby kicking the mummy in the tummy. It is framed as a response to Mary’s greeting.
when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb.
It is clarified in verse 44.
44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
Now in bible leaping is closely tied to rejoicing, to celebrating, to praising.
See, for example,
LUKE 6:23; ACTS 3:8 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven;
8 And leaping up, he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.
In the bible, leaping is praising.
But how comes an infant, a baby, a foetus even, to leap and rejoice at an encounter with Jesus?
Because that, my friends, is the spiritual, spirit-filled response to Christ.
And the annunciation of the birth of John, we read this:
LUKE 1:13-15 13…your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John… and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb.
Now baby John isn’t the only spirit-filled person in the room. His mother, Elizabeth, also, offers us insight as to how the spiritual respond to Jesus.
41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit,
And what is her response?
41 And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!
She responds with praise, proclaiming the blessedness of Mary and her child Jesus.
Singing, praising, rejoicing is the spiritual, spirit-filled response to the person of Jesus Christ.
Why? Because the spiritual recognise that Jesus Christ, the son of God, the son of David, the son of Man, was born to bless the world.
In no other religion that I have encountered does singing hold such a primacy in its worship than in Christianity.
So much so, that singing and worship is synonymous in the vocabulary of so many Christians. You see a Church camp timetable, and there is a cell in the table labelled “worship”, and you show up, and it’s really a time of singing. Worship is so much more than singing, of course, but friends, it is never less.
Singing is central to the worship of Christ, now on earth, as it shall be in heaven. And I’m saying this as a Bible-Presbyterian. Fancy that! In a typical BP Sunday Service, we sing 4-5 songs in total?
I was invited a Pentecostal church recently, and so, a guest, I sat right in the front. And for first hour of the service, it was singing, song after song after song. And its serious business with them, they go the whole nine yards.
Singing and leaping and dancing, drums, keyboard and guitars. And there I was right at the front, next to the stage, beneath the speakers. And whole time, my watch kept buzzing, warning me that the loud environment is damaging to my hearing.
So here’s the first application of our sermon. It is for the spirit-filled people of God, which to be clear, refers to every single Christian: Sing. Sing praises to Christ.
For that is the spiritual, spirit-filled response to the Lord Jesus Christ.
EPHESIANS 5:18-19 18 …but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart
There is a football club in England where whenever the opponent scores against them. Their fans in the stadium respond, by singing “If you’re happy and know it, clap your hands…” With their hands, firmly in their pockets, or with folded arms.
So praising involves singing, but not all singing is praising. It matters how we sing. Take care, then, family of God, how you sing.
I say this, because I have attended BP services, where the congregation sings “I lift my voice in praise unto thy name, I lift my hands, you’re every day the same.” But not a hand is lifted. BP services where we sing, “I stand, I stand, in awe of you”, but the congregation is seated. What would a visitor think – are these guys singing sarcastically or what?
I have led worship in my own church, 10,000 reasons by Matt Redman, and it’s a great song, but standing up there on stage, looking over my people, I can’t help but feel that the passion, the expressions of my congregation, is found wanting.
I want to say, guys, it’s “Sing like never before”, not sing “like you never sing before”, like that.
So, family in Christ, as we gather each Sunday for worship, as we celebrate Christmas, treat your singing as serious business.
For it is the spiritual, spirit-filled response to the birth of Jesus Christ, the child born to bless.
I turn now to address the non-Christians in our midst.
Now you may not yet believe the same things that I do, but I’m certain we seek the same thing in life – blessedness; a blessed life.
If that is your desire, this is the response you ought to offer.
LUKE 1:45 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
Elizabeth calls Mary blessed not so much because she is the bearer of Christ, but because she is a believer of God.
What did Mary’s faith look like?
LUKE 1:34, 37-38 34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
After announcing to a virgin Mary that she will be with child, Mary asks, “How will this be? It’s a different question from “How can this be?”
For Mary, it is not a question of whether it will happen, but simply how it will.
The angel simply says, “nothing is impossible with God”. That is, “Don’t worry, you don’t have to know how, you just have to know that God can.”
“Nothing is impossible with God,” and for Mary, that is sufficient for submission.
“Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
And that’s the essence of faith. It says, “I do not know what all of this means, I do not know how it will come to pass. But I believe that God will do what he has said, and I will submit to his word.”
Often times, we want to know the ins-and-outs before we decide don’t we? Prove that existence of God, explain the resurrection of Christ, defend the reliability of the bible, and then I will decide if God is to believed in and worshipped. Show me facts, lay out the evidence, provide me with the reasons, then I will evaluate and I will decide.
Now that is not wrong. That is not a wrong way to come to faith. What is wrong, is to think that that is the only way to come to faith. It is not.
Faith is not the absence of questions, nor the elimination of doubt, faith is simply trust.
Those of you who are parents know this. You tell your kids that they can’t eat instant noodles for lunch everyday, and they say why. And you say, because it lacks nutrition. And what is nutrition, what does it do, why do our bodies need it, what happens if we lack it? And you say, you’re 5 years old. there are answers to all of your questions. But you need not know them now. For now, you need to learn to trust me. Trust what I’m saying and listen to me. That is the way to live and grow up healthy as a young child.
That is what it means to have faith in someone. And our heavenly Father, likewise, wants our trust, above and before our complete comprehension and understanding.
That is why Mary is called blessed. Not for her child, but for her child-like faith.
So says Jesus, several chapters on:
LUKE 11:27-28 27 As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” 28 But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
Friends, God has spoken to you through his word this morning, he has revealed his Son to you in this word. What shall your response be to Jesus? Will it be the blessed response of faith?
Jesus not a just historical figure from long ago, Jesus is not far away. He is near, he is here, he is revealed to you today.
You may ask, “But where is he? I don’t see him.”
Well neither did John. Neither did baby john. He was in the womb.
The response of faith is not ultimately a sensory response, but a spiritual response. While we are in this world, we behold Jesus Christ truly with spiritual sight, not physical sight.
1 Pet 1:8-9
And to that, Jesus says,
29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
But seeing is believing, is it not? How are we to believe if we have not seen?
By the book, the bible.
30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
The Bible is the Word of God, when you hear from it, you hear from God.
And when the bible writes of Christ, it writes for your sake, it writes for your faith, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
That is a life that is blessed.
So I urge you to respond as the blessed Mary did, with faith. Just as God announced the birth of Jesus to her through the angel Gabriel 2000 years ago, God is likewise proclaiming Jesus Christ to you through his word today.
Like Mary, you might be feeling disturbed at this news. Like her, you may be feeling concerned and confused, seeking to discern what this Season’s greetings might mean. Like her, you may not know all the ins-and-outs. But you can, like her, respond with faith, believing that what the Bible says is true. That Jesus the Son of God, the son of David, the son of Man, has come to save us.
That Jesus, on that first Christmas, was born to bless us.
LUKE 1:45 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
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