Turning again this morning to the Gospel of Luke, Luke's Gospel, Chapter 1. I'm going to read a section from Luke, Chapter 1, beginning in verse 26. And with God's Word open before us, let's seek the Lord in prayer. Ask the Lord now to speak to our hearts through his word. Let's pray. O Lord, as we bow now in thy presence with thy word open before us, we pray that we may discover it to be a living word to our souls. We ask, O Lord, that thou wilt show us our Savior, remind us of his greatness, equip us, O Lord, to serve and worship our God and our Savior. Grant, O Lord, that as we behold him, we may become the more conformed to him. I ask of thee, Lord, that thou will take me up and make me a vessel fit for thy use now in this present time. Cleanse me, O Lord, from my sins. I plead the blood of Christ over my life. and ask of Thee, Lord, that it may please Thee, based on the merits of that blood, to cleanse me so that I may in turn be filled with Thy Spirit. O may Thy Spirit lead and guide me now. May it please Thee, blessed Spirit of God, to grant to me strength of heart and mind, clarity of thought and speech, and especially unction from on high. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Luke chapter 1, we begin in verse 26. This is the Word of God. Again, let us hear it. And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin, a spouse to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her and said, Hail thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age, And this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God, nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her. Amen, we'll end our reading in verse 38. And we know that the Lord will add his blessing to the reading of his word. for his namesake. I want to call your attention in particular to the words of verse 37 from the portion we just now read. Verse 37, Luke chapter 1, we read there, for with God nothing shall be impossible. For with God nothing shall be impossible. We're following now in the narrative the path of the angel Gabriel. We should note, therefore, that Gabriel is mentioned by name four times in the Bible. We find him all the way back in the book of Daniel, chapter 8, being called on to explain the vision of the ram and the he-goat to Daniel. We also find him mentioned by name in Daniel, chapter 9. Following Daniel's prayer, he's sent to give Daniel skill and understanding in the things pertaining to the future of Jerusalem. Now we find him hundreds of years later appearing first to Zacharias. We studied that part of the narrative in our last study, and we noted that even a man of the spiritual quality of Zacharias still had to deal with unbelief. We may console ourselves based on the example of Zacharias that unbelief is something that we all still have to contend with. Call to mind that the unbelief of Zacharias was due to the limitations that he placed on God. Whereby shall I know this? Or in other words, whereby should he know that his prayers would be answered and that he would have a son? Whereby shall I know this? For I am an old man and my wife well stricken in years. Basically, what we find Zacharias saying is that there was simply no way the announcement of the angel could be realized. Given the ages of Zacharias and Elizabeth, it was simply impossible for them to have a child, God notwithstanding. Unbelief. Next, we find the angel Gabriel in verse 26, making his way now to a city in Galilee called Nazareth. to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. The announcement that Gabriel made to Mary was an announcement for the ages. You could call it the most important announcement of all time. I'm afraid that we find it too easy at times in our Bible readings to read this section of Luke's gospel and pass over these words rather casually when they ought to stop us in our tracks and move us to reflect at least for a moment or two on their significance. I hope that when you read your Bibles, you read them slowly enough and carefully enough and contemplatively enough to take in the importance of what you read. This announcement by Gabriel to Mary, you see, may rightly be regarded as pointing to the focal point of all history. Now, I'm not going to focus on that announcement, on the content of it so much in our study this morning. I'll probably need to come back to it. But let's at least hear it and allow ourselves to be moved to worship God for it. Look with me at verse 30. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. And now look at the way Jesus is described, beginning in verse 32. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. What a glorious announcement. Now on the surface of it, it might seem as though Mary responded to the angel Gabriel the same way that Zacharias did. When we read in verse 34, how shall this be, seeing I know not a man? Recall from our last study that I pointed out how one commentator, I believe accurately, interprets Mary's question She was not challenging the truth of what was being told to her. She was merely questioning the manner in which that truth would be realized. And that gives rise to a further explanation from the angel Gabriel. And in that explanation, we're given a further description of Christ. And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Next, Gabriel informs Mary that a miracle was also being wrought, and her cousin Elizabeth And that Elizabeth, not in the same manner as Mary, but miraculous nevertheless, she would bring forth a son in her old age. And then the very last statement that's made by Gabriel, and this is the statement that I want to draw your attention to this morning. This might be the very last thing that Gabriel says in the Bible, in the New Testament. It's found in verse 37, and it's a statement that we'll see in the course of our study today that ought to govern the way we think about God, and it ought to govern the way we pray, and it ought to govern the way we live, and the way we witness. It's a statement that ought to govern our confidence in God, and it's a statement that ought to be foundational, so to speak, to our worldview, if you will. Again, the words of verse 37, for with God, nothing shall be impossible. For with God, nothing shall be impossible. You know, to the degree that we actually believe that statement, to that same degree, we'll be enabled to move mountains. We'll cast them into the sea, according to Christ. or will be plucking up trees by their roots and planting them in the midst of the sea, according to Christ." Luke 17 and verse 6. Let's look then at this statement by the angel Gabriel, keeping in mind what Gabriel himself said to Zacharias earlier in the narrative about his own authority. "'I am Gabriel,' he says, verse 19, "'I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God "'and am sent to speak unto thee "'and to show thee these glad tidings.' "'And it is that angel, that named angel, that communicates this statement to Mary, for with God, nothing shall be impossible. Think with me then, first of all, on the providential manifestations of this verse. The providential manifestations of this verse, for with God, nothing shall be impossible. And by providential manifestations of this verse, what I have in mind really this morning is the catalog of things in this statement, in its context, that can be viewed as impossible, humanly speaking, but are nevertheless made possible by God. We can start with the very first thing that the angel Gabriel says to Mary when he appears to her. Look at the words of verse 28 now. And the angel came in under her and said, hail thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee. Hail thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee. Now, when you consider the sinful nature of man and the fact that the human race is a fallen race, a sinful race, a rebellious race, then this opening statement by the angel Gabriel provides us with cause for wonder and awe. Highly favored, we ask? The Lord is with thee? Like Nicodemus in the Gospel of John who came to Jesus by night, we might ask, how can these things be? How can any fallen descendant of Adam be highly favored by God? How can it be said of any sinful human that the Lord is with thee, when by his fall man lost communion with God? We do not, of course, follow the Church of Rome in ascribing to the Virgin Mary more than we should. If Rome's view of the Virgin was right, it would make the angel's statement understandable. Rome attributes sinless perfection to Mary. Rome puts forward the notion that Mary herself was immaculately conceived. Interesting to note that Mary herself held no such view. We see later in the narrative when Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth and responds to the blessing pronounced on her by her cousin, that Mary sees herself as a sinner in need of a savior. So we read in verse 46, Mary's words, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. For he hath regarded the lowest state of his handmaiden. For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. Her lowest state, she acknowledges her lowest state. Her lowest state, you could say, was due to much more than her being from an obscure city in Galilee called Nazareth. Her lowest state is what made it necessary for her to call God her Savior. A shorter catechism asks in question number 17, into what a state did the fall bring mankind? And the answer, the fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery. The next two questions and answers in the Shorter Catechism describe very vividly the sinfulness and the misery of that estate. One question devoted to the sinfulness, the next one devoted to the misery. Question 19, the answer to the question, or the answer to the question about man's misery reads like this. All mankind, by their fault, lost communion with God, are under His wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever. All mankind, our catechism says, which means, It includes the Virgin Mary. How can it be, we do well to ask, that anyone, let alone a young virgin in an obscure and lowly city of Galilee, can be highly favored by God? The answer is found in the words of our text, for with God nothing shall be impossible. With God nothing shall be impossible. Interesting to note here that the phrase highly favored in verse 28 occurs just one other time in the New Testament, that Greek word. It's found in Ephesians 1, verse 6. Listen to the words of Ephesians 1, verses 5 and 6. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted, underscore that phrase, made us accepted in the beloved. Same word. as highly favored with regard to Mary. Now, there's no denying that there's a sense in which Mary was blessed in a unique way that no one else would ever be blessed. She alone was chosen of God to bring forth the Messiah. Generations rightly call her blessed in this unique way. But on the other hand, there's also no denying that believers, having been predestinated by God to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ, are highly favored as well. Here, then, is a providential manifestation of the angel statement, for with God nothing shall be impossible. Like Mary, we can and we should affirm in our worship of Christ this morning that he's regarded our lowly estate because he's done something for us that would have been impossible by any human perspective. He's delivered us from the estate of sin and misery, and he's brought us into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer, the very Redeemer that's to be conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Oh, what an impossible task that's brought to pass nevertheless, because with God, nothing shall be impossible. And that brings us to the next impossible providential manifestation of the angel statement found in verse 31. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shalt call his name Jesus. A miraculous birth, to be sure, an impossible conception, to be sure. Thou shalt bring forth the Son and call his name Jesus. I can't help read the verse without cross-referencing it to the verse in Matthew's Gospel that spells out exactly why the name Jesus would be given to this miracle baby. Thou shalt call his name Jesus, the angel says to Joseph, for he shall save his people from their sins. The very name Jesus means Jehovah is salvation. Here then is another blessed impossibility, salvation. When the rich young ruler left Christ being convicted by Christ's words, we read in Mark's gospel, chapter 10 and verse 26, the disciples' response and Christ's reaction to their response. And they, the disciples, were astonished out of measure. This is after the rich young ruler has departed now. They were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, who then can be saved? And Jesus, looking upon them, saith, with men it is impossible, but not with God, for with God all things are possible. Do you catch the meaning of that? Salvation is impossible. For you, for me, totally impossible. We could spend much more time analyzing the particulars of this impossible salvation made possible by God. There's a sense, you know, in which the miracles that Christ performed have spiritual counterparts in the sinner's salvation. So just as Christ healed blind men, so does the sinner gain spiritual sight that enables him to see the truth of a sin and the truth of Christ, the Savior of sinners. Have you seen Him that way? Do you see Him that way? Do you see your sin? Do you see Christ as the Savior of sinners? If you have, you have had something brought upon your life that's impossible. You've gained spiritual sight. The natural man won't see Christ that way. He refuses to see Christ that way. He refuses to see his own need. And the fact that you have come to see your need and come to see Christ as the answer to that need means that you have had something impossible brought upon your heart. You have gained spiritual sight. And just as Christ unstopped the ears of many that were deaf, so does a sinner gain spiritual hearing that enables him to perceive the truth of God's word when he hears it. And just as Christ called Lazarus forth from the grave which he had occupied for four days, so does the work of the Holy Spirit bring forth spiritual life in the lives of those that were spiritually dead. Salvation is impossible, you see, but all things are possible with God. This is why we glory in Christ and not in ourselves. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 27. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not to bring to naught things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Do you realize that that's why we're here this morning? We're here to glory in the Lord. We're here to glory in the fact that our God can do impossible things. We're here to glory in the fact that salvation has been brought for us and in us. Impossible things that we have nonetheless come to experience by the grace and the supernatural power of God. Why then do we glory or boast in Christ? We glory in Christ because he's the one who accomplished what was impossible. He's the one that could and did make atonement for our sins. He's the one that would become a man in such a way that his humanity would be real, but he would be preserved from inheriting the sinful nature of man. That's what makes the virgin birth so important, you know. Some view it as if it were not so. Some mistakenly think it's a matter of little consequence whether or not we view Mary as a virgin or just a young lady of marriageable age. Oh, it's very important. To represent us, Christ must become one of us, but he must do so in a way that keeps him untainted by sin. In the natural realm, such a feat is impossible. But as Gabriel reminds us, with God, nothing shall be impossible. So these are but a few of the providential manifestations of the angel's statement. We haven't exhausted the category of providential manifestations of things that are impossible. I hope these few examples will be sufficient to move your soul to wonder and awe at the greatness of your Savior and the greatness of his salvation. His greatness in salvation leads me to my next thought on the angel statement. Let's think for a moment next on the practical impact of this verse on our lives. The practical impact that such a statement ought to have on the life of the believer. If this statement in verse 37 is true, and nothing shall be impossible with God, then how should that affect the way you and I think about God and about Christ? One of the things that I sometimes do when it comes to sermon preparation is I'll go to sermon audio And I'll see, sometimes I'll do nothing more but scroll through the titles of sermons on the text that I'm contemplating. I did that this time around and discovered that I'm rather late in line. All sorts of other free Presbyterians have already preached on this text. Where have I been? Better late than never, I suppose. I listened to a sermon excerpt on Sermon Audio by Armand Tomassian. Highly recommend it. Less than two minutes. One minute and 59 seconds, I believe it was, that excerpt. And I love it when I can listen to something that is so concise and yet communicated with so much passion that it lights the fire in my own soul about the truth of this text. Now look that up. You'll be blessed by it, and it doesn't take any time to take it in. Two minutes. In that excerpt, Reverend Tomasi incites the 19th century Scottish preacher and theologian Thomas Chalmers. Thomas Chalmers used in a great and mighty way in his day for the building of the church and the extension of Christ's kingdom, and Chalmers makes the remark that whatever your vision of God is, it's too small. It's just too small. If nothing is impossible with our God, then why should we have views of God that place any kind of limits on Him at all? Oh, we need to be men and women of greater vision, especially when it comes to the greatness of the God and Savior that we worship and serve. If it's God's purpose and plan to spread his gospel throughout the world and to build his church and extend his kingdom, then who are we to limit him? This was the constant practice, you know, of the children of Israel when they wandered in the wilderness. The psalmist cites their history when he says in Psalm 78 and verse 40, how oft did they provoke him in the wilderness and grieve him in the desert. Yea, they turned back and tempted God and limited the Holy One of Israel. I'm afraid that in our mundane day-to-day routines in which we tend to accept the awful spiritual conditions of sin and depravity that surround us, we tend to view God the same way those Israelites in the wilderness viewed Him. We limit Him. We conclude that there must be some things that are just beyond Him. The irony to the way the Israelites thought about God in the wilderness was that they had already seen God do so many impossible things. They saw the Red Sea divided. They saw the way God delivered them from slavery in Egypt. They saw the way God destroyed the Egyptian army that would have pursued and destroyed them were it not for God himself dealing with their enemies. And what's more, they heard His voice from Mount Sinai. They saw the mountain quake, and they heard the sound of the trumpet exceeding loud, and they knew that this God was loyal to them. This was their God. And He's our God as well. How prone we tend to be to forget what great things God has done for us over the course of our lives. Has he not proven himself faithful to you time and again? Has he not opened the Red Sea, so to speak, for you and enabled you to go forward at a time that you felt yourself to be so hedged in and surrounded by impossible circumstances? This is one of the reasons, you know, why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. We need to take the time to pause and reflect and count our blessings. We need to reflect on the impossible things that God has done for us, and we need to make sure that the angel Gabriel's statement about God governs the way we think about our God. We need exalted views of our God and our Savior. We need to see as clearly and as fully as we can our Savior seated at the right hand of His Father, all power and authority committed to Him. And we need to come to recognize that with our God, nothing is impossible. And if our thinking about God will be governed by the truth of our text, and we're convinced that nothing shall be impossible with God, then this will also impact the way that we pray. What a challenge Christ puts to his disciples, and what a challenge he puts to us today. When we read his words in John 16 and verse 24, hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name. Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. makes for a good practice, you know, in the place of prayer, to match your petitions to your estimation of God's greatness. If you truly believe he's great, if you truly believe that he's the God with whom all things are possible, what would you ask him for? What should you ask him for? Well, ask him for things that are impossible. I love the way this is expressed in the words of a hymn in our hymn book, Behold the Throne of Grace. Stanza three. My soul, ask what thou wilt, thou canst not be too bold. Since his own blood for thee was spilt, what else can he withhold? Next stanza. Beyond our utmost want, his love and power can bless. To praying souls he always grants more than they can express. In the last stanza, since tis the Lord's command, our mouth will open wide. Lord, open thou thy bounteous hand that we may be supplied. If our God is the God of the impossible, then not only do we need to rise to the challenge of thinking exalted thoughts of our God and Savior and praying for things that are beyond us but are not beyond him, We should expect also to gain the victory in our battles against sin. This truth should govern not only how we think, not only how we pray, but also how we live. It is true, and you know it and I know it, that we are constantly involved in spiritual warfare. We face spiritual foes that would take us down, that would defile us and destroy us. And what a ready ally the forces of hell find in our carnal natures. It seems impossible at times to gain the victory over the world and the flesh and the devil, but with God all things are possible, which means you can gain the victory over the world and over the flesh and over the devil. The words of Revelation 12, verses 10 and 11 come to mind. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ. For the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night, and they overcame him." Literally, they conquered him. By the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death, I look at a verse like that, and I adopt it as my goal in life. Oh, Lord, bring me to that point. Let that be my life's testimony that I become a conqueror by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of my testimony, and love not my life even unto the death, certainly not my life in this present state of things. Sin once had a grip on you that was impossible to break, but in the power of the gospel, the grip was broken. And while you have not yet gained entire mastery over your sin nature, you have escaped its dominion. I dread to even think where I would be today had it not been for the gospel of Christ coming to my own soul with such power that old things passed away and all things became new. That was something seemingly impossible and would be impossible in my own strength. But as the angel Gabriel reminds us, with God, all things are possible. So the angel's statement ought to impact the way we think. It ought to impact the way we pray. It ought to impact the way we engage in our spiritual warfare, the way that we live. Let me say just a word finally and briefly about the proper response to this statement by the angel. The proper response to it. For with God, nothing shall be impossible, the angel says to Mary. We can do no better than Mary by imitating her response to the angel's statement. Note what it says, verse 38. And Mary said, behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her. Be it unto me according to thy word. That was a response of submission to all that the angel had announced to her. She would be the one to bring the Messiah into the world. She would be the recipient of untold blessing. She would acquiesce to that which would be impossible. Oh, little did she know what kind of trials and what kind of reproach her blessings would bring. She acquiesced to it. She submitted to it. You and I can do no better. Submit to the truth of what God reveals in his word That impossible things become your port your portion Have you appropriated those impossible things? Have you? appropriated impossible salvation It's there for the taking it's there for the asking all you have to do is see your need of it and apply to Christ for it and and it comes to you fully and freely without any reference to your demerit. It comes as a gift. Oh, we need to simply submit and acquiesce to the glorious truth that with God nothing is impossible. May we indeed follow Mary's example and submit to the truth of God, to the wonderful glad tidings pertaining to things that in our own power and strength would be impossible, but with God they're not, because with God nothing is impossible. Oh, may the Lord himself stamp his word on our hearts in such a way that we think exalted thoughts that are worthy of the God and Savior we serve, and may our prayer lives be governed by it, and may our spiritual warfare be governed by it, and may we indeed submit to the glorious truth that our God is that great, that nothing is impossible for him. Let's close then in prayer. O Lord, as we bow in Thy presence now and bring this study to a close, we thank Thee for the way Thou hast revealed Thyself in Thy Word. O Lord, we pray that Thou wilt forgive us for the times that we yield to the temptation of placing limitations on God that we ought not to place on Him. May it please Thee, Lord, to impress this truth upon our hearts, that with Thee nothing is impossible. We know, O Lord, that there are any number of things on any different levels that we may come to regard as seemingly impossible. May those notions be blown away by the truth of Thy Word, and may our thoughts of God and of Christ be magnified. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.