Nothing Will Be Impossible With God

Edited by Steve Fountain from a sermon on December 2, 2012 called "The Virgin Birth and Monday Morning."

Women find out they are pregnant through a variety of means — the color of a bar on a home pregnancy test, a visit to the doctor, or even the advent of morning sickness.

As we look at Luke 1:26-38, we find a young woman in Nazareth named Mary who is told by the angel Gabriel that she is going to be pregnant. Oh, she is also told to “call His name Jesus. He will be great, and 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.” (Luke 1:31-34)

Now, I don't know how most people would react to a visit from an angel, muchless being told about their role in the arrival of the promised Messiah. But her first words to Gabriel are very human and practical.

“How can this be. Since I do not know a man,” she asks (Luke 1:34)  Mary is betrothed to Joseph. She is still a virgin. So, naturally, Mary wonders how she can be pregnant.

In verse 35 she is told that the Holy Spirit will come upon her, and the power of the Most High will overshadow her.   The word picture that Gabriel uses is fascinating.  As the sun casts its rays upon the earth, plants grow and flourish — that is a normal way things work.   

And when something comes between the sun and earth like a shadow, it interrupts the rays of the sun.  Rays being interrupted is the image that Gabriel uses as the visual for how this conception will occur.  God is going to step into —overshadow — the natural world and interrupts the normal rules of nature with the power of the Most High God.  In other words, God will create outside the laws of nature.  This is not natural it is supernatural.

Gabriel gives Mary a sign of God’s power to do the impossible.  Likely this is the first time Mary hears of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, which is by this point, Elizabeth is 6 months big.  Then in verse 37, we read the intended point of the miracle of the virgin conception: “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Mary submits her emotions, her will, and her fears to God.  In verse 38 she says, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.”  Mary is like that little boy in the temple, who hears the voice of God calling his name.  Like young Samuel, who said, “Speak, for your servant hears,” Mary is a willing servant of the Lord.

The vigin birth is not simply a story that has to be explained away; rather it is a story of how the Almighty God entered His creation through a miracle of grand proportions.

We considered last week the firm foundation that Luke set out to accomplish for future generations that we could have certainty.  Luke presents the virgin birth as a fact, and if that fact is rejected, then the witness of these writers — and hence the witness of the whole Bible — is not true. 

If Jesus was not born of a virgin, then why should we believe that he arose from the dead, to bring you life, and to answer your prayers?  If Jesus was born by normal means, then your faith is no different than any other.   At which point, we might ask ourselves, what is the point of all this doing good, all this trusting?

If something is impossible for God, then nothing is possible for God.  Why a Virgin Birth? To demonstrate that “nothing will be impossible with God”— that God is completely trustworthy.