(I want to listen to this sermon)

According to the yahoo web site the most popular answer to the question "Who is the greatest person who ever lived?" was Bob the builder – because he can fix anything!

I think that there are plenty of other more serious candidates and I want to talk to you about One of them this evening.

Luke 1:30-33 "And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God.  And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 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, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”"

2.000 years ago an angel named Gabriel appeared to an unmarried teen-aged girl and transformed for ever her life with the message he had for her. Mary was to become pregnant not in the usual way of having relations with a man but by the unique way of being overshadowed by God Himself as the Spirit of God enables her to conceive.

The arrival of Jesus then transformed Mary's life and He has been transforming the lives of those who come into contact with Him ever since.

The Angel said that the child Mary would carry would be great and for a few moments this evening I invite you to consider with me some aspects of His greatness.

·         The fact of Jesus

By any reckoning we must surely be prepared to recognize that Jesus is great– after all 2.000 years after His birth we're still celebrating His birthday! And He is certainly not past his sell-by date. If you enter the name "Jesus" into the google search engine you come up a fair few pages – in 0.16 seconds some 834 million results are referenced!

·         Christians

The number of those people who want in some way to associate themselves with Him is enormous with statistics suggesting that 1 in 3 of the world's population would consider themselves to be Christian. Now I am in no way suggesting that all of these have the kind of personal faith that the Bible speaks about as being necessary to having eternal life but surely a man who can inspire so many people to associate with Him 2.000 after His birth must be recognised as being great!

·         Facts about the Bible

The Book that speaks about Jesus is the Bible. (Jn.5:39 "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me." )This is the most translated book in the world – in fact the whole Bible exists in some 450 languages and parts of it have been translated into another 2000 while yet more exists in oral form – ie. parts of the Bible have been recorded in other languages without having been printed and published.

The Bible Society estimates that between 1816-1975 almost 2.5 billion copies of the Bible have been printed. Another survey enlarging that period to include the years up to 1992 put the number of printed Bibles nearer the 6 billion mark!

Not only is the Bible by far the world's best selling book but it is also the world's most shop-lifted book!

So a first glance would seem to say that what the angel said to Mary was true after all – Jesus is great. But so far we've not looked very closely at the evidence – let's move in a little closer and examine the matter a bit more in detail.

How I would like to go into this in a lot of detail but I must contain myself but there really is so much that could be said. This evening we can barely touch the surface!

1.       Jesus did great things

2.       Jesus caused great emotions in those He met

3.       Jesus made great promises as He issued gracious and generous invitations

4.       Jesus declared His own greatness

5.       Jesus made great sacrifices and secured a great salvation by the greatest sacrifice of all

1.       Jesus did great things

1)      He healed the sick

a.       He made the lame to walk

b.      He gave sight to the blind

c.       He unstopped deaf ears

2)      He even raised some from the dead

3)      He performed nature miracles

a)      He turned water into wine

b)      He multiplied bread and fish to feed the multitudes

c)       He calmed the winds and the waves with a word

d)      He walked on water

2.       Jesus caused great emotions in those He met

a. some were greatly amazed as they considered what He did and said.

b. some were struck with a great fear as they realized the truth about themselves as they stood in His presence.

c. some were filled with a great joy as they realized that the One they were desperately looking for had finally come.

3.       Jesus made great promises as He issued gracious and generous invitations:

(Notice the breadth of His invitations and how they're given to all regardless of the importance or otherwise that society might attach to them.)

i)        Mt.11:28 "Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

ii)       Mt.19:14 “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”

iii)     Jn.6:35 "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst."

iv)     Jn.7:37 "Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’"

4.       Jesus declared His own greatness

It is one of the ironies of life – most people will be happy to agree with the assertion that Jesus is a great teacher but will not be at all impressed by what He actually taught concerning Himself! But speak about Himself He most certainly did and He asserted His own greatness very clearly and in a way that His hearers fully understood!

Jesus taught He was greater than:

-          The Temple that place where God met with His people

-          Abraham, Jacob, Jonah, and Solomon

-          His hearers realized that He was actually making Himself equal with God

How could a good teacher say such things?

This is how – because it was all true!

"(Jesus) is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen." Rom.9:5

5.       Jesus made great sacrifices and secured a great salvation by the greatest sacrifice of all.

2Cor. 8:9 "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich."

Jesus came into this world from another. As God the Son He shared the glory of His Father from all eternity but voluntarily laid it temporarily to one side in order to save His people from their sins!

He taught His own disciples about how to appreciate the true value of love: do you remember what He said?

Jn.15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends."

And this is what Jesus Himself did:

Jn.10:17-18 "I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again."

In fact Jesus did this not just for friends but for enemies as Paul makes clear writing to the church in Rome:

Rom.5:8 "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

The salvation He has thus secured is described by the writer to the Hebrews as "a great salvation".

Jesus is great! And the truths about Him are so great that we must not ignore them.

1Ti 1:15 "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."

And He is ready and able to save you.

God bless you all.