Everything important in life requires a plan. whether that has to do with running a company or managing your finances. It's certainly true of playing sports and coaching a team. And we all know the importance of a good strategy and a plan in military exercises. It's definitely true in church. In fact, just two weeks ago today, we had our first onsite activity here since the pandemic began with our parking lot communion service. And we worked so hard on putting together a plan of action. Our staff knocked it out of the park. They even came in on Saturday and did a rehearsal of how to park the cars and how to get the cars off site, how to distribute everything and they left no stone unturned. It really showed me the strength of this wonderful staff team. But, you know on the day that it happened, that was such an amazing feeling we all had because what we saw was a well thought out and prayed over plan coming to play, coming into action, being executed and carried out, and it happened just the way it had been planned. It was an awesome feeling that we all had. And when we think about the joy we feel when we have a plan and it goes off just as we plan, imagine how God felt knowing that long, long ago before He even created the world, He had the plan in His mind and heart to send His Son, Jesus, into the world to be born of the virgin Mary and to pay the price for a sinful humanity that we were unable to pay on our own. God had a plan. It was a plan from eternity past. It wasn't a plan that He had to stop and scratch His head and rethink, oh, no. It was a perfectly laid out plan. And the longer I study this plan of God's desire to accomplish redemption on our behalf, I stand in awe and want to worship Him that this plan was carried out and that Jesus fulfilled God's plan. And Christmas is our time to reset our focus every year on God's divine plan for saving our souls. And what I want us to do in the next few weeks is to take a look at this plan, how it unfolded with the birth of Jesus. And the title of today's message is A Plan in Motion, A Plan in Motion. And I want you to open with me to the Book of Luke in your Bible. It's in the New Testament, Matthew Mark and then Luke will be in the first chapter. And we're going to begin reading in verse 26 and read through the 33rd verse of Luke 1. And the writer who is a physician, Dr. Luke, pens these words when he says, "In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, 'Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women.' But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and considered what manner of greeting this was. And then the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great and He will be called the Son of the Highest 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 will be no end.'" We're going to stop there in the 33rd verse. If you noticed in verse 26, it says, "In the six month, the angel Gabriel came to pay Mary a visit." And so when you think about the six month, the six month was the six month of Mary's cousin, Elizabeth, pregnancy. Because in the previous verses what happens is the angel Gabriel appears to a man named Zacharias and lets Zacharias know that he and his wife, Elizabeth, were going to conceive a baby boy in their old age, having spent all of their marriage childless, but longing to have a child. And that child's name would become John the Baptist, who was the four runner of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And so what Luke tells us in verse 26 as we read a moment ago, that it was in the sixth month after Zacharias and Elizabeth had been able to miraculously conceive John the Baptist, that Gabriel shows up on the doorstep of Mary's house. And this shows us this plan in motion. And this is what I want us to talk about today, is how God carried this out with precise detail. And that's the first point is that God's plan always includes details. We think we know the details to take care of. We think we know the things to give attention to, but I want you to understand with me today that God's plan always covers the details. Because He is the infinite all-knowing God, He knows every detail that we're not wise enough to know about or to think of. And sometimes the things that we focus on aren't even the right things, but God doesn't miss anything. God's got it all covered. Every I is dotted, every T is crossed. God's plan always includes the detail. And when we look at this particular passage, I mean, think about it. Even the time when Gabriel shows up to give this revelation to the young teenage, Mary, tells us it was specifically in the six month after this revelation to Zacharias and the conception he and his wife were able to have from God, as John the Baptist is now inside the womb of Elizabeth. The time was nailed down and then the way God sought to communicate this to her, it was an angel. And I mean, imagine this. Having a knock at the door and it's the angel Gabriel standing there. I would call that, God covering the details. He initiated the communication. Mary was minding her own business, living a life honoring to God. She was preparing to consummate her marriage with Joseph and here the angel shows up to give her a message from God Himself. And as we saw there, it was a very specific message that covered so many details that God wanted Mary to know. Now, I'm sure that Mary looked back on this moment all the days of her life. Don't you know that you would never ever forget being visited by an angel? And I'm sure that there were many experiences she had, most of which are in the Scripture, but there might be many of which that were not recorded in Scripture, where she scratched her head and thought back on Gabriel's visit and thought, "He left out this detail. He didn't prepare me for this particular experience in raising the Son of God and knowing that my Son would eventually be nailed to a cross, no. Gabriel left out certain details. And that's what I want to remind all of us of today, is that just like Gabriel giving Mary the crucial details, he left out some details because God doesn't always just unload the exhaustive list of details that we'd like to know. The truth is that that Mary being as young as she was and being human like we all are, she would not have been able to take it all in if the angel had explained to her everything. that she was going to go through as the mother of Jesus. But God gives us the information that we need. And listen, He gives us the information that we can handle, but the details are always covered, whether or not He reveals all of them to us. So the timing was very specific, that's a detail. The way in which God communicated was a detail. The people in this story are very specific details to the plan of God. It was always God's plan that Mary would give birth to Jesus. It was always God's plan that Joseph, her husband to whom she had been betrothed, that he would be the stand-in father to raise the boy, Jesus. It was always God's plan. As Luke tells us concerning who Joseph was, that Joseph was a descendant from the line of David. We read that a moment ago. So the details are all together. And I want to share something, even though it says here that Joseph, in verse 27, was of the house of David, we also know that Mary's lineage could be traced to David as well. That's an important detail that God had taken care of. In order for Jesus to be the fulfillment of promise, His parents needed to be the lineage of King David of Israel, and so they were. Another detail God covered. Every circumstance of this plan was taken care of. For instance, the fact when it says here, in verse 27, that Mary was a virgin. We can't say enough about that because since she was a virgin, this is proof that the conception of Jesus within her was not due to being with a man. But instead, it was a miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit. So she was a virgin and the Bible includes that. And God wanted us to know that Jesus was virgin born, that no human male can take credit or blame, as it were, for her conceiving a child before she had been with the man to whom she had been entrusted. All of these things were details. And Dr. Stanley frequently reminded us. And I want to remind you that one of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith is the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. When you deny the virgin birth, you have undercut one of the foundations of Christianity. That is yet another of the details that God took care of. So in this thing about God giving us details and not giving us more than He wants us to know but giving us all that we need to know, it amazes me too to read in this story, how much of a surprise this revelation was going to be. And we know when we read Matthew's description, in in the first book of the New Testament, about Joseph had a dream that Mary was pregnant and not to be afraid to go through with the union, the wedding, because what was conceived in Mary was the Holy Spirit. So often in the plan of God, there's what we know and there is what we don't know when we sign on. There are those surprises that God reserves for Himself. Another way to put it is there are those things we see and those things we don't see, The things that we think we know and then what we find out is really going on. You think about it, Joseph and Mary, they're still living separately. They had not consummated their marriage. It was still in what was called the betrothal stage, but they were fully on board. Their families were fully on board. I'm sure that each of them, Joseph and Mary had friends they had grown up with who were celebrating their marriage that was to take place. And even in the community, everyone knew this was going to happen. But not a single one of them, not Joseph, not Mary, not their family members, not their friends, not a one of them could have called this one. Not a one of them saw this thing coming where Joseph's going to get a revelation from God, where Mary is going to get a knock at her door from a heavenly angel. And so they're getting completely rocked by all of this. And remember, we have reason to believe they're teenagers. They're not even 20 years of age yet. They're young, they're still.... We would call them still kids. Back in that day, they were considered adults. But in our day, they'd still be considered very young. And see, this is how God works. He leads us into plans for our lives and we're following Him, we're obeying Him. But all the while, He's got something working over here on the side. He's already got our life mapped out in front of us. And Joseph and Mary think they're just going to get married and have a cute little house with a white picket fence and raise a family and live a normal everyday life like all the other Jewish, young married couples in Israel in that day in time. It wasn't to be the case. And I'm reminded of what Proverbs 16:9 says, "We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps." I go back to that verse so many times in my life, Because how many times have we made plans, only to realize that God had a different plan? We lay it all out. We think we know how this is going to play out. We think we we've got everything set, everything in its own little compartment, and then boom, something changes. And that's what the Bible teaches. And Joseph and Mary are modeling this for us to see that although this was God's plan to save us from our sins, their lives were real. They had hearts and emotions in this, and they had mapped out a future for their lives. And God had something entirely different. It was awesome, it was unbelievable. It was fantastic that they would be the parents of Jesus. She, the God bearer, having Christ conceived within her womb. Joseph standing in as the male presence in the life of Jesus, as He would be raised. This was an awesome plan. And so here's Gabriel talking to Mary, you know, Gabriel. He is one of only two angels who are named in the Bible. We see references to angels all over the Bible but the only two who are named, Michael and Gabriel. And Gabriel isn't just any old angel. Obviously, if he's one of the two who are called by name in the Bible, he's pretty important. Let me just tell you, when Gabriel showed up to Zacharias to let him know about John the Baptist, that he and his wife would give birth to, Gabriel identified himself in this way in Luke 1:19. It says, "The angel answered and said to him, 'I am Gabriel.'" And look at this, "Who stands in the presence of God and was sent to speak to you and to bring you these glad tidings." Now here's the thing about it. Not all angels have the privilege of standing before the presence of God. Gabriel gives us his bio here in verse 19 of chapter one when he's talking to Zachariah. This is he who stands in the very presence of God. He gets his orders directly from the lips of Almighty God. And to think that Gabriel who stands in the presence of God was dispatched by direct communication from God to go down there, to pay a personal visit on earth to this virgin teenage girl, every detail covered. I think about what must his trip from heaven to earth have been like. He went from heaven where God gave him the order to go visit Mary and he came from heaven into the universe and from the universe into the Milky Way galaxy, and from the Milky Way galaxy to planet earth and from planet earth to the little plot called Israel and from Israel to the village of Nazareth and from Nazareth, he found on his divine GPS, the address and where exactly the door behind which Mary was located. And here is the angel who stands in the presence of God who has taken this well-defined navigated trip from the portals of heaven to the front door of Mary. And now he's telling Mary, "You are going to give birth to the Son of God." God's got the details. All we have to do is just let God be God. He is a specific God. Here's the next thing though. I want you to think about this. Not only does this plan include the details, but God chooses our assignments. And we learned this from His choice of the assignment, and what an assignment it was for both Mary and Joseph. We're talking about one of the most important assignments any human being has ever received in the history of the world, to bear within her own body, the Son of Almighty God. Look in verse 28, where he came inside where she was and the angel said to her, "Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women." So here the angel declares Mary to be the highly favored one. And this was the angels way of letting Mary know that God had chosen her. The choice of God was her sign of favor from God. And when we look back through the list of all of those who fulfilled assignments in the Bible, you can also think about this in history after the Bible was written. Those who've been used to fulfill specific assignments. The same as true of them. Every one of them was handpicked by God. I mean, God could have picked anybody to build the Ark, but He didn't, He picked Noah to build the ark. And God could have chosen anyone to father the Hebrew nation, but He didn't choose anyone, He chose Abraham. God could have chosen anyone to be the father of the 12 tribes, but no, He didn't, He chose Abraham's grandson, Jacob, whose name appears even in this Christmas story. God could have chosen anyone to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt. In fact, the guy He chose begged God to pick somebody else. But God persisted said, "No, I've picked you. I've chosen you, Moses, you're my man." God chooses people to perform what He calls them to do. I think about King David of Israel whose name is also mentioned here because he was an ancestor of Joseph, Jesus' earthly father. And we know he was an ancestor of Mary, Jesus' mother. God could have chosen anyone to be the King of Israel, but He didn't, He chose David. In fact, David had a lot of other brothers that David's dad thought were better qualified to be the King one day. But no, God didn't want David's brothers, God handpicked David. And God could have picked any one of David's kids to be the successor to David to build the temple, but He chose Solomon. We could go down the list of those whom God handpicks to accomplish His purposes. In fact, I love what the apostle Paul said in Galatians 1. He said, "But even before I was born," look at that, before I was born. "God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. And then it pleased him to reveal his Son in me so that I would proclaim the good news about Jesus to the Gentiles." So we need to remember, God chooses our assignments, but He also chooses those who fulfill the assignment. He pairs the assignment with the person and none of this is random. God, doesn't just say, "I'm going to look through a list of people here." No, God knows whom He will choose to accomplish His work. And what I'm telling you today is He could have gone throughout Israel and found another virgin girl. I'm sure there were many. He could have gone throughout Israel and found another godly young woman besides Mary, but God chose Mary. And the angel said, "Mary not only are you highly favored, but God is with you." And she would need to be reminded of God's presence in her life for the news that she was about to receive, but also for all the challenges that would come her way throughout her years of being the mother of Jesus. And the angel said that Mary was blessed among all women. Not only because she would be blessed with a child, but because of who this child would be. Now, we sometimes can be a little critical of others who focus too much on Mary and perhaps who pray to Mary. And we understand why we pray to Jesus while we talked to God through and in the name of Jesus, that Mary is a human being. But sometimes I'm fearful that we don't say enough about Mary. It's one thing to be critical of giving an undue emphasis to Mary. It's another thing to ignore her significance because God chose her. She was special, she was unique. The angel said she was highly favored among all other women, not only in Israel, but in all of the world. There's only one woman whom God chose to give birth to His Son. And that should cause all of us to be forever grateful for the role that precious Mary played in the plan that God carried out for us to be saved. Ultimately, it was because of her obedience that Jesus was then born and that Jesus fulfilled the plan of God and died on the cross to save us from our sins. And we know from verse 30 that Gabriel had to calm her down because she was very afraid. His words, "Fear not," are spoken over and over and over in Scripture. When God manifests Himself in a glorious way in the Bible, people are always fearful over the glory of God. And it's not uncommon when angels manifest a message from God or the glory of God, that fear is a natural response to an angel. I mean, I'm telling you, it would scare me if there were a knock on the door and somebody said, "I'm the angel Gabriel and I'm coming from God to give you a message." I can imagine a teenage girl being frightened to death, and Gabriel calmed her and said, "Hey, fear not." And I love the fact that even though God's presence can be fearful, sometimes it's not His presence to which we respond in fear. Listen, sometimes it's our assignment that causes us to be afraid. I think about it. Two days ago, Friday, was the the ninth anniversary of Dr. Stanley calling me and asking me to pray about coming to Atlanta. And I'm telling you that was one of the most fearful moments of my life. And not only the moment when I spoke with him on the phone, but the nine weeks of his and my praying together. It wasn't that some angel from heaven had frightened me, but it was the fear I had over the magnitude of the assignment. And whether it's Gabriel comforting Mary, or the Holy Spirit comforting us, God comes to us when we are fearful and speaks words of calm and peace over our lives. And we should all be extremely grateful for God's calm and peace in our times of fear. And Gabriel says, "I didn't come down here to scare you, Mary, but I am going to give you some pretty significant news." And in verse 31, he says, "You're going to conceive a son in your womb and this is the name you're to call Him. You're to call His name Jesus." And we know from subsequent verses, Mary asks, "How can this even be possible when I've never been with a man?" And Gabriel would go on to tell her that with with human beings, there are things that are impossible, but with God, all things are possible. And you know, for Mary to go along with this, which means she's hearing the angel say, "You're going to have a son conceived in you before you've been with a man." We talk about this every year when we focus on Mary and Joseph. Even Joseph was fearful of the hit to her reputation when he was told she was going to be pregnant before they were together. And I wonder how Mary was dealing with with the fear that her reputation would suffer if she had to share this news with others. You know, in this day in time, that would be no big deal. Isn't it sad how that would be no problem today, that we don't think a thing in the world about somebody going out and just getting pregnant outside of marriage. And you know, we're not to condemn people for moral choices, but let me tell you something. Unless the church teaches our young people differently, unless moms and dads start teaching their sons to save themselves for marriage and to teach their daughters from the time they are old enough to talk about issues that they'll be exposed to. Until we start raising the bar and explaining these things to our kids, do you know what we're doing? We're just letting the world teach our kids to act like bunny rabbits, just to hop in the sack, hop in the backseat of a car. I mean, you have parents today who will let their teenage kids go to the bedroom with their girlfriend or boyfriend and close the door. And the kinds of things that go on, you know have to grieve the heart of God. So what I want you to understand is in that day in time, this would have been a stigma for the news to get out that Mary was pregnant before they were married. And so think about it with me. Obedience to God meant more than her reputation and it needs to mean more to us than our reputation. Obedience to God has to mean more than popularity. Obedience to God has to mean more than people's approval. And you know, throughout my life and I've certainly felt this recently, that I have to dispense with who likes me, who doesn't, who compares me to somebody else, who doesn't, whether I'll ever rise to the status somebody else. And what I've got to do is I've got to follow the example of Joseph and Mary as we're thinking about them at Christmas time. And I've simply got to say, "Lord, I'm going to obey You. I'm going to obey You. If these folks like me, great. If not, I'm going to obey You. If I never measure up to someone else, it's okay I'm going to obey You. If I'm never as popular as some, I have one assignment, that's to obey God." And I've heard someone say that over and over and over again. Obey God and you know the rest, and leave all the consequences to Him. And who exemplifies this any better than the virgin Mary? God is going to take care of it. But here's the last thing I want you to think about with me. And that is, as this plan is in motion, whether it is the plan for Mary and her soon to be husband, Joseph, or whether it is God's plan for you, God's focus is always on Jesus. It's always on Jesus. In the Christmas story, there are lots of characters. And in the Christmas pageant, you'll see shepherds, you'll see animals brought in pageants, even here that we've had before. You'll see the wise man, King Herod, all of the different players in the nativity story, but none of us can question the truth that the baby in that manger is who it's all about. And that is what God wants the focus of our lives to be. Looking in verse 31, it says, "And behold, you will conceive in your womb, bring forth a Son, call His name Jesus. He will be great. He will be called the Son of the Highest 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 will be no end." Now for a moment, I just want you to compare John the Baptist and Jesus, for instance, in Luke 1:15. The angel said to Zacharias about John the Baptist, that John the Baptist would be great in the sight of the Lord. In verse 32, as we just read, the angel told Mary about her Son, Jesus, He will be great. So in both of the revelations, John the Baptist would be great in the sight of the Lord. Jesus, it says, would be great. Why would it say that John the Baptist would be great in the sight of the Lord, but just that Jesus would be great. I'm going to tell you why because Jesus is not just in the sight of the Lord. Jesus is the Lord. And then in verse 76, when Zacharias was speaking of prophecy over his soon to be born baby child, he says about John the Baptist, "And you child will be called the prophet of the Highest." So Zacharias is calling John the Baptist, his little boy, the prophet of the Highest. But Gabriel says to Mary about Jesus in verse 32, "He will be called the Son of the Highest." There's a big difference, isn't there? Between a prophet of the Highest and the Son of the Highest. A prophet speaks for the Most High, but the Son of the Most High is of the same essence as the Most High, meaning that the Son of God is truly God. John the Baptist was a prophet. Jesus was God. And we see all of this in Luke 1. And you may remember, when John the Baptist grew up and became a preacher, and he was out in the Jordan river baptizing people, preaching repentance, and Jesus walked up. We believe He's about 30 years old when this happened. And John the Baptist stopped and he directed people's attention over to the banks of the river. And in John 1:29, it says, "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, 'Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He's the one I was talking about when I said a man is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me." So did you see what John the Baptist said about Jesus? He said, now I've told you He was coming after me, but He existed before me. Now we already saw, when we read verse 26, that Gabriel didn't even come to Mary's house to tell Mary she was going to conceive Jesus, until John the Baptist's mother was six months into her pregnancy, which tells you that John the Baptist was six months older than Jesus. So if John the Baptist is older than Jesus, why would John the Baptist say that Jesus existed before him? I want to tell you why, because John got it. John understood that Jesus Christ is the great I AM, the eternal Son of God. And whereas biologically on earth, John the Baptist had six month lead time. If you compare their birth dates, the truth is that John the Baptist understood that the Son of God did not have a birth date because the Son of God always has been. His birth date on earth is simply when He took on flesh and bone and He put on human clothing. John the Baptist knew he was just a prophet, but Jesus was God. And the angel said to Mary that Jesus was going to be given the throne of his father, David. And this is a fulfillment of something God told David in 2 Samuel 7:16, when he said, "And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever." And then the angel said that that Jesus, the Son of Mary, was going to reign over the house of Jacob. And Jacob, of course, was the father of the 12 tribes and Jacob's name was later changed to Israel. This forever links the relationship of Jesus to the people of Israel. And then the angel said, "This little boy that you're going to give birth to by the way, His kingdom will never end." Did you get that? His kingdom will never end. And this is what God revealed to Daniel in the prophecy of Daniel 7:14. "About the Messiah, His rule is eternal, it will never end. His kingdom will never be destroyed." And then it was revealed again to John in the Book of Revelation 11:15 where it says, "Then the seventh angel sounded and there were loud voices in heaven saying, 'The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.'" And how long shall He reign? Oh, I'll tell you. "And He shall reign forever and ever." So the angel dumped a whole lot into Mary's lap concerning the identity of the child whom she would bear. And when you think about this Jesus whom we love and adore, having a kingdom that will never end, having a kingdom that will last forever and ever and that He Himself will reign over this forever kingdom, eternally without end. That's what I call a secure kingdom. It's a righteous kingdom. And the reign and rule of Jesus is not about an election where votes have to be counted and recounted and recounted again. It's not that he's ever going to be up for another term. It's not that you ever have to doubt the future under his rule and what kind of changes his administration will make from time to time. Oh, no, I'm telling you the kingdom of Jesus Christ is settled, it is fixed, it is immovable, it is unchangeable, it is unalterable because He is the Almighty ever living, omnipotent, all-knowing Son of God. Jesus Christ is over a kingdom that will never end and I am a part of that forever kingdom. And do you know what you need to do this Christmas season is you need to ask yourself, "Am I in that kingdom?" And being a part of that kingdom means that you care about what happens in the country where you live, but you realize, oh, there's a bigger country to which I belong. It's an eternal country. And I'm pleading with you today if you have never, ever acknowledged the Christ of Christmas, that's all it takes to become a citizen of this kingdom that shall last forever. And so today, if you would like to give your heart and your life to Jesus Christ, we want to help you. And we have a number that you can text, it's at the bottom of the screen, and you can just text the name JESUS to that number. And what better name is there to text, because as you're texting that name, He is the one in whom you should trust. But if you'd like some help and encouragement, we're here to do that for you. So I want you to do that now. Please do not put that off because if you go through Christmas as you have year after year before, and you really don't know for sure that Jesus, the Christ of Christmas, is right here in your heart, ruling and reigning forever and that you belong to His kingdom, you've missed the whole point of it all. It's not actually about the music and the gifts and the trees and the decorations. It's about Jesus. Let's pray. Father, how we thank you for Jesus, how we praise your name, that in Jesus, you have proved your love to us. You have shown us how much we matter to you. I thank you for everything we've enjoyed today: the music, this verse by verse look into your plan playing out in the life of Mary. But now the most important thing, the most important moment of this live stream is when people look within to say, "Do I know Jesus?" And I pray, the Holy Spirit will reveal to people their need for Jesus and help them to realize that Jesus is only a prayer away. That by faith in Jesus, belief in His death and resurrection, and a willingness to acknowledge sin and ask forgiveness of sin and surrendering to Jesus, someone can be saved today. Oh God, let it be. In Jesus name, amen. I want to thank you for watching. I hope you've been blessed. I hope you've been encouraged and I hope that you will remember that God's got a plan for your life as well. Until next week, remember, keep the focus on Jesus this Christmas season. God bless.
