Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said, Amen. Amen. So I'm going to posit something to you, and I want you to tell me if this is true, if I'm right about this. But my guess is that the vast majority of people do not like it when people watch them open presence. Is that fair to say? Give me a head nod or something. Yeah. I think most people don't like it when everyone's watching them open a present. Why? Because we don't know what we're going to get and we don't know what our response is going to be. Right? Like I remember when I was growing up, my grandmother, I think my grandmother did it right. She would just come together with all the grandkids, give us all of our presents, let us open them at our will. She'd sit back with her tall glass of coffee and just watch us and then we would get excited and we'd open and we'd run up and give her a hug. I think most people, we don't like it when people watch us because we're just not sure if we're going to give the right response. And so here's a question I have for us this morning. Here's a question I want to introduce to you. Not what is the right response to a Christmas gift, but what is the right response to Christmas itself?

How are we to respond to Christmas?

What even is Christmas? And how do we respond to it? Well, I will tell you now that I think the right response to Christmas is found in the title of this sermon series, Go Tell It on the mountain.

The right response to Christmas is to hear the news, receive the news that Jesus has been born and then share the news. The right response to Christmas is actually to go tell it on the mountain. And so what we'll be doing in the sermon series is we're going to be hearing and seeing how different people, different members, different characters of the nativity scene, how did they hear and receive the news that Jesus was to be born or that Jesus was born?

And how did they respond? And not only that, but what does it say about how we should be responding to Christmas? And so we're gonna look at what is probably the most famous character of the nativity scene, aside from Jesus himself.

We're gonna see how Mary responded to the news that she was with child and going to give birth to the Son of God. And so if you have your Bibles, would you please turn to Luke chapter 1. Go ahead and jump down to verse 26. We'll read verses 26 to 38. If you want to use the Bible that we provided, happy for you to do that.

That's on page 1088. Now as you're turning there, if you are worried about what your family, if you're worried about your family watching you in your response to opening a gift that you don't want, imagine the entire world for all eternity watching your response to the news that you are going to give birth to the Son of God. And so I would ask, if you are able, here and also in our other venues, if you are able, would you please stand for the reading of God's Word? Would you hear the Word of the Lord, the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 1, verses 26 to 38?

Luke 1:26-38

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. 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.”

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. 36 And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. 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.

Amen. This is God's word. Let's pray and we'll continue.

Father God in heaven above, thank you for this passage, which has challenged and encouraged people for centuries. Father, let this eternal passage shape our eternal perspective that we may find true joy and true peace this Christmas. For it's in the power of the Spirit and in the name of Jesus that we pray these things. And everyone said, Amen.

Amen. And with that, you may have a seat. All right, church, family and friends who are gathered here and also want to say a quick hello and welcome to those who are here specifically for the baptism service. On this first Sunday of Advent, let's consider this one piece of good news from our text here. A good challenge for us, but good news nonetheless. Mary's reaction to the news of her pregnancy shows us how the faithful should respond to Christmas. And as we look at this well-known passage, we're going to focus on just two things here this morning with our time. We're gonna look at Mary's reaction.

How does she respond and how does she receive this news of her pregnancy? And then we're gonna take that and see how that will would and should inform our response to Christmas itself. But first, Mary's reaction. See, Mary is told that she's going to be with child and not just any child, the son of God. In the midst of a truly supernatural encounter, Mary yet gives a very human response. I don't know if you noticed this, but I thought Mary's response was so human. Not the type of human response that I think we would give today.

See, today, I can see our reactions being something like this, Well, I guess I better get my life in order, for I'm going to give birth to the Son of God. I can see our reaction being something like, Well, I guess I'm going to have to miss church this Sunday to get the house ready for the Messiah.

We immediately, and this is what we do, we immediately jump to all the things that we think we have to do. That's not the meaning of Christmas. It's not about what you have to do, it's about what you get to receive. See, we've jumped to all the things that we have to do, but not Mary. In this passage, we see three verses dedicated to how Mary handles this news, and from those verses we see her response. And the first thing we see is this, she contemplates it. Mary is such a model of faith here. Her response to these not just life-changing, but world-changing, this world-changing news, it truly gives us a framework for what it means for us to respond in faith. And I might add, not just how we might respond, but how you can truly enjoy Christmas this year despite all of the other things we add to it. She's first thing, she contemplates it. She thinks about it. Let me ask you a question. I want you and the other venues to play along to. I want to ask who in here you genuinely, you truly do love it when people just randomly stop by unannounced to visit? You really love that.

Let me see. Let me see. Let me see the extroverts up in here. Okay. That's a minority of the groups in here. So let me just see by way of hands the other side. Maybe you do like having people over, but let's just plan it out. Who are those people? Let me see. Almost everybody else. I saw this video recently online, and it was this younger woman, I'm guessing in her twenties, and she said this in this video.

She said, Your house should always be just five minutes away from guest ready. And then this other woman splices into the video real quick and says tell me you don't have kids without saying you don't have kids. See, if you think that random guests are stress inducing, imagine an angel of the Lord just stopping by. But this angel isn't there to see if your house is guest ready. Because angels aren't visitors. Angels are messengers. In fact, that's what the word angel means. Angel means messenger. And the message that Gabriel, the angel Gabriel gives is one for the books. The angel says, oh favored one, the Lord is with you. Oh favored one, the Lord is with you. Can you imagine a more positive greeting than that? Ain't nobody ever walked up into my office and said, Oh, hi, favored one, the Lord is with you. I would clear my schedule for that guest. This angel says, Oh, favored one, the Lord is with you. And then Mary gives a very real response.

Verse 29 says that she was greatly troubled at the saying. You could say that she was unnerved. And then it says that she, quote, tried to discern what sort of greeting that might be. She tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. Now, if you could read this in the original language, this is not just a passing thought. She dwelt on this. She was contemplating this. She was pondering this. She was deeply thinking this through. She was considering what was happening. She wasn't considering what she needs to do. She was considering what was happening in that moment. Let me just say that's a word for you at Christmas. Stop worrying about all the stuff you've got to do and start enjoying the moment that God's given to you. She considers what is going on. She's pondering. She's contemplating. She's not thinking, oh my goodness, my house is not ready for an angel of the Lord. She's not worried what people will think. She's not even pushing back immediately on what the angel is saying.

Mary's thinking this through. She tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be, but she doesn't just think about it. She actually engages the angel. And that's the next thing that we see, is that she questions it. Now let's talk about this for a second.

So the angel can clearly see that Mary's nervous and unsure of what's happening. So the angel says to her in verse 30, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And then the angel goes on to say that you're going to be pregnant, but pregnant not just with a king, but with a son of God who will be the king forever. And I love Mary's response, not with a what, but a how. Verse 34, and Mary said to the angel, how will this be since I am a virgin? Mary questions this, but notice, I really want you to hear me on this one. If you've tuned out, tune back in. Mary questions this, she's not pushing back. It's a genuine inquiry.

See, in our day and age, we're losing this. In our day and age with social media, people love to make statements, but rarely do we see true dialogue. People love to engage and to debate, and again, to make their statements, but finding a good faith question is hard these days. People are asking questions not to seek answers, not to learn. They're making, they're asking questions that are really just statements. They don't want an answer, they just want to say something.

So here's what I'd say to you. Don't do that. Don't hide your statement behind a question that's not asked in good faith. Just man up and make your statement. I want to see a time where we return to having true dialogue. And that starts with asking good faith questions.

And Mary does this for us. Mary is so humble here. She wants to know how she's going to be pregnant, how she's going to get pregnant when she's never had a husband. And the angel honors her question by giving a response. Look at verse 35.

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. Mary will become pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit. Listen to me.

It is the first day of Advent. It is December 1. We got all of the Christmas season before us. You get a chance right here, right now, to enter into the Christmas season doing it right. And the best way to do that right is to search and to seek the true spirit of Christmas. The true spirit of Christmas is not the ghost of Christmas past.

It's not the ghost of Christmas present. It's not the ghost of Christmas yet to come. The true spirit of Christmas is not the spirit of family. It's not the spirit of festivities. The true spirit of Christmas is not even the spirit of giving.

The true spirit of Christmas is the Holy Spirit. To lean into the Holy Spirit and let Him guide your celebration of the birth of the Son of God. The Holy Spirit, it's the true spirit of Christmas. For it is the power of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Most High that conceives in Mary to carry the Christ child. And to further drive this home, the angel Gabriel says this amazing thing in verse 37, for nothing will be impossible with God. And now, check it out, Mary has her answer. And with that, we see her final reaction to this miraculous news, she surrenders to it. She surrenders to it. Mary, having her answer, she gives her life to this. She gives one of the most amazing answers

in all of the Bible. Verse 38, Mary said, Behold, I am a servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. Now listen, listen here. God did not send Gabriel to get Mary's permission. God doesn't need our permission for him to pull us into his plans, but that does not take away from Mary's truly faith-filled response. So you have to understand what Mary, what Mary's doing.

When Mary says, I am the Lord's servant, let it be to me according to your to your word. Do you understand what Mary is doing? She's a young girl and like most young girls, she she has a vision for how her life is going to play out like most young girls. She has this fairy tale image of how her life is supposed to go and when she says, I am a servant of the lord. Let it be to me according to your word. She is surrendering her life. She's surrendering her future plans. She surrenders her prerogatives. She surrenders her pride. Whatever she had hoped for in life, she now lays aside so that she can be a part of carrying out God's plan. Mary is the epitome of selflessness, and that's why she is the most beloved woman who ever lived. Not because she declared, I am woman, hear me roar, but because she declared, I am a servant of the Lord. And this is why she's venerated among, above all women who have ever lived. Mary is amazing. And I understand that we have concerns that our Catholic friends may venerate Mary in an unhealthy way. And so I think what we do in the Protestant world is we almost like turn our back on Mary, rather than letting her inform the way that we should respond to God and to faith and especially Christmas. But Mary is amazing and I'm hoping that you're seeing this here. As we look at Mary's reaction to the news of her pregnancy, she contemplates it, she questions it, she surrenders to it.

This is the framework for how I hope you will respond to the news of Christmas, the news of the birth of the Savior of the world. So let's be challenged, men, women, and children, let's be challenged by this young girl's example for us as we spend a few moments with the time we have left looking at how we should respond to Christmas itself. First thing is this.

I think we should contemplate it because the faithful think deep. Now listen to me. This is not to say that we shouldn't have a childlike faith, but it does mean that we shouldn't have a childish faith. A child-like faith means that we believe even though we don't fully understand. Whereas a childish faith doesn't even try to understand.

No, my fellow Christians in the house, we are to think deep. We are to think deeply about matters of life and faith. Romans chapter 12 verse 2 says this, says, Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. That's a call to think deeply. Christians, we are not called to an ignorant faith. We are called to an informed faith because we are to think deeply about these things. So here's my question for you. Again, this is the first Sunday of Advent. This is December 1. We get to start fresh. Let's do Christmas right this year And and so I'm going to ask you a question

Have you? Truly thought deeply about what Christmas actually means I'm going to invite you

I'm going to challenge you all To do something between now and December 25th, and I'm going to especially give a challenge to the men. I invite and challenge us all to do this, but men, I want you to hear me. I'm giving you a unique challenge in this. Here's what I want you to do, because I'm going to do the same. At some point between now and December 25th, in the dark of a winter night, when all you have is the glow of your Christmas tree, what I want you to do is I want you to walk over

to that nativity set that I'm almost certain you have set up somewhere. Again, with the dark of the winter night, with just the glow of the Christmas tree, just you and God, I want you to pick up that little porcelain baby, that little figurine, deeply about what this represents. This represents that God became man.

That the Son of God, God the Son, the second member of the Trinity, stepped out of the heavenly spiritual realm into the physical earthly realm. He broke the laws of physics. He transcended what we know of reality. He stepped into the womb of a young girl so that he might be born a true human,

live a full human life perfectly before men, perfectly before God, so that he might be the perfect sacrifice for our sin, taking our punishment that should be ours. He took it for us. Because he was God, he could bear all the sin of the world, and because he was a man, he was able to pay for human sin. That's what this little figurine represents. Church family, friends, men, think deeply about the incarnation of Christ. If you do that, I'm pretty sure all the other stuff that comes with Christmas, you'll get a lot of perspective on.

If you remember what we are truly celebrating this year, that God became man and he came to save us. That's what we get to celebrate here and now. So contemplate it because the faithful think deep. And with this, Mary also shows us that we need to ask good questions. Question it because the faithful are curious. I'm going to say something and I thought long and hard to make sure I could say this rightly without mischaracterizing it, but I thought deeply and I can say this with true integrity. In all my years of ministry, 20 some years in ministry, I have never been asked a question that hasn't been asked and answered before at some point in history. Ask away. Ask your questions.

We invite your questions. I know there's like some cultural perspectives out there that think that, you know, asking questions in church is like a no-no. That may or may not be true in other places, but I'll tell you here at Peace Church, we want you to ask questions. We want you to dive in. We want you to think good, long, and hard about the Christian faith and come up with some great questions and ask them. Mary does this. She does a remarkable thing. She asks, how can this be? You know what? If Mary did not ask that question, we would have missed out on some deep truths about Jesus Christ and the incarnation. If Mary did not ask that question, we wouldn't have some really great answers to Christian theology as it relates to Jesus' incarnation. When we ask questions, we help others to grow in their faith, not just ourselves. Ask your questions. We welcome questions here. Christianity is not afraid or offended of your hard and honest questions. Mary gave us a great model that we can ask questions, but you knew there's a but coming, right? But here's the important part. What happens questions are answered. Then what? Well, Mary shows us that too. And this is our last idea. This Christmas, may the answers you get lead you to surrender to God, because that's our response. When you ask questions and you are given an answer, surrender. Surrender to it, because the faithful trust God. Mary asks a great question, she's given a great answer, and then she says this in verse 38, behold, I am a servant of the Lord. I love this. This is such a great word for us. This Christmas, be a servant of God and his will.

Hear me. Be a servant of God and his will, not a servant of society and their expectations. Not a servant of your in-laws and their expectations. Yes, I just said that. Be a servant of the Lord and His will. And when you do that, you'll love and honor others in the way that God has called us to.

Mary says, let it be to me according to your words. She surrenders to this. So here's what I say to you. When you come and ask questions, it's a dangerous thing. It's a dangerous thing to ask questions because what if your questions get answered?

Because I tell you now, I wish I could tell you how many times, how many conversations I've had both inside church and outside of church, how many times people have asked me questions and I've given them the right response and they respond by saying, yeah, well, I just still don't know or is it that you don't want to know? So please, don't ask questions if you won't let the answers change your mind. Have an open heart, have an open mind to the true spirit of Christmas, the Holy Spirit. Because if it's the right response, it'll be from Him anyway. So here's a question I have for you. Have you surrendered to Christ? Have you bowed your head and bent your knee to the newborn King, to the risen Savior, to the will of God and to the moving of the Holy Spirit? My friends, you don't have just a Christmas gift waiting for you. I hope that you do. But you don't have just a Christmas gift waiting for you. If you don't know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then what you have waiting for you is the judgment and wrath of God. Because you know and I know that our lives are full of sin. And God's right and just response to sin is to condemn it and punish it. That's what a good and just God will do.

He condemns and punishes sin. So if you are still in your sin, that's what's waiting for you. The judgment and punishment and wrath of God. But, if you've called upon the name of Jesus Christ, if you've surrendered your life to Him, then you have the gift of eternal life waiting for you. And let me tell you something about eternal life. It doesn't happen the moment you die, it happens the moment you believe. Your eternal life starts the moment you confess Christ as your Savior.

So if you have not done it, do it now. It's often said there's no better time than right now to believe on the name Lord Jesus Christ. But I tell you, the second best time is at Christmas. And those two are aligning right now. So my friends, do not delay.

There is no one more mighty to save. There is no one more worthy of our adoration, trust, and devotion than Jesus Christ. Church, let me ask you something. Do you want to see more people come to faith in Jesus? If so, say amen. Say amen like you believe it. Amen. My friends in the house, the church longs for you to place your faith in Jesus. Do it today. Don't wait. Do it today so you may celebrate Christmas for what it truly means, that it is a celebration of God coming to save you. That's what we get to celebrate here at Christmas. And as we look at this young girl, Mary, again, be reminded that Mary's reaction to the news of her pregnancy shows us how we, the faithful, should respond to Christmas. You may not like it when people watch you open your Christmas gift, but you've been given the gift of the gospel.

So receive it with thankfulness and run to him with gratitude and surrender like Mary. Don't wallow in your skepticism or sit in your indifference and your half-heartedness. Never making a true choice which will never impact your life. You've got to make that choice here and now so that it will impact your life and your family forever. Now is the time. Surrender and trust in Jesus. He didn't just come from heaven to earth to save you. He rose again from the grave to trample your sin, to trample Satan, and to offer you life to the full eternal life, so that you could be brought back to God.

This happened because of what started at Christmas. Amen? And so what's our response? To go tell it on the mountain, to a world that desperately needs to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. And so that's what we get to do right now. Let's close by singing that age-old hymn, Go Tell It on the Mountain. Let's close by singing that age-old hymn, Go Tell It on the Mountain. Would you please stand?