Some of you are hoping for a child. Some of you are expecting one. Next Mother's Day, you'll have a baby in the church nursery. And many of you have one. Your children are in the preschool, or beside you in church, or living in another part of the world, or preaching this sermon.

Here's someone who was where you are. When the angel Gabriel visited Mary, a 13-year-old peasant teenager in the tiny village of Nazareth, he brought astounding news: this virgin would conceive a bear a child. How? "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). What a birth announcement! Outside Mary's home there would not be a wooden stork with a baby in its beak, but an angel with a baby in its arms.

Here was her reply to such astounding news: "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said" (v. 38).

To be the Lord's "servant" meant literally to be his "slave," his bondservant. To do only his will and bidding, always. To belong to him, to be owned by him.

If a mother was such a servant to her owner, so was her child. Mary was here dedicating herself and her unborn Son to her Lord. In total surrender and obedience.

Why come to church in such circumstances? Why bring your child to worship, in our sanctuary or in your soul? Because you are where Mary was.

Yours is the greatest challenge in all of life: responsibility for a life. A baby will be dependent completely upon you for every day that it lives, every meal that it eats, every protection that it needs. Your life will center in the life of the child you carry today.

A growing child will be dependent upon you for its needs, guidance, and direction. Your children will never stop being your children. Their pain, grief, failures and problems will be yours. When they hurt, you will hurt, for the rest of your life.

So you need the help of God. The angel said to Mary, "Nothing is impossible with God" (v. 37). Underline that verse in your heart. Keep claiming it as his promise, his guarantee to you.

Claim the fact that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you (Philippians 4:13); that nothing can separate you from the love of God (Romans 8:35); that your Lord will be with you always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). God's word calls you to "cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you" (1 Peter 5:7). Cast and keep on casting. And God will hear and help your heart.