Bible Passage: Isaiah 7:14 (NKJV)
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: December 8, 2021

Bulletin Advent Service Dec. 8

Impossible. It just does not happen. A child is not conceived and born without the involvement of a human father. Any biology textbook will tell you that. Any child support office will tell you that. Any soap opera from the 1990s will tell you that. A human child is not born without a human father. It is impossible. It does not happen, unless – unless the Almighty God has determined for it to happen.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this evening, we continue our Advent series, “Behold! Jesus!”, and this evening, our God calls us to Behold! The Impossible Accomplished! Once again, the Almighty God puts himself on the line, as he makes a remarkable promise. God says, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son.” When these words were spoken through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, the Lord was pledging to his people that he would carry out a miracle the like of which had never been seen before. Even when 89-year-old Sarah conceived a son, Isaac, it was not without her husband Abraham. Even when barren Hannah conceived a son, Samuel, it was not without her husband Elkanah. But now, the Lord promises a greater miracle, a miracle that surpasses all prior miraculous births: a woman will bear a Son without the involvement of any man. Human wisdom says, “Impossible,” but when the Lord speaks a promise, it is time for human wisdom to close its mouth.

The Lord, of course, was not being brash, he was not speaking carelessly when he spoke these words of promise. In fact, the virgin birth had been an integral part of the Lord’s plan all along. It was inherent in the first promise of salvation spoken in the Garden of Eden. You’ll remember that after Adam and Eve caved to the temptation of the serpent, the Lord promised to send a serpent-crushing Seed of the Woman. He would be a Son, and he would have a human mother, but who would this serpent-crushing Seed of the Woman be? Who could go to battle with the devil and destroy him for us all? Not any human male born in the natural way.

There’s an interesting verse in Genesis 5 that tells us something important about the way all of us were fathered. It says, “Adam lived 130 years, and he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his own image,” [3]. You’ll remember that at creation, Adam was made in the image of God, but Adam lost that perfect image. He lost the image of God when he disobeyed his Creator. So when the time came that Adam fathered his son, Seth, Seth was born not in the perfect image of God, but, rather, in the fallen image of his fallen father, Adam. Seth was sinful from birth, sinful from the time his mother conceived him, because he was conceived in the image of Adam. And Seth passed on that image of Adam to his children, and his sons passed on that image of Adam to their children. And hundreds of generations later, all of mankind has received the sinful image of Adam, all of mankind except for one Man who was born without a human father.

God’s chosen Savior would come, a Savior who could go to battle with the devil and undo all the damage he has done. He would not be conceived with a sinful nature. He would not be conceived in the image of Adam. Instead, he would come down to earth from heaven bringing the image of his eternal Father above. He would be the Son of God, born among us as the Son of a virgin, and in this way our God would fulfill another seemingly impossible promise.

Did you catch that promise in our verse this evening? It’s in the second half of the verse, where God says, “And [she] shall call his name Immanuel.” Immanuel means “God with us.” But could that really be true? Could God really be with us? Could God really put himself on our side when he knows the kind of people we have been? He knows how fickle we can be. He knows how many promises we haven’t kept. He knows how empty our words can be when we speak to others and when we speak to him. Human wisdom would say that a righteous God would want nothing to do with fallen sinners like us. But, again, when the Lord speaks a promise, it is time for human wisdom to close its mouth. Our God is not like fallen humans. He always fulfills all that he says, and he promises us an Immanuel. He promises that God with us will come, a divine and human Savior who can fight for us, defeat the devil for us, redeem us from our sins, and open heaven for us.

And if there is any doubt, if you need proof that this God is with you, that he is for you, that he is on your side, then behold, God’s impossible promises accomplished in a town of Galilee called Nazareth, where an angel named Gabriel addresses a virgin named Mary. A virgin miraculously conceives, and nine months later, a Savior is born. He lives a righteous life in your place. He withstands the devil’s temptations for you. He goes to a cross, he puts your sins to death in his body. Then, in one more impossible act, he rises from the dead all to assure you that sin, death, and the devil lie defeated beneath his feet.

In Jesus, God is with you forever. He promises that on the basis of his work, you are forgiven, you have peace with God, you have God’s perfect image restored to you by faith. So we respond to God’s seemingly impossible promises in the same way that Mary responded when she receive God’s promised: “Let it be to me according to your Word,” [Luke 1:38].

Amen.

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