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Celebrating Christmas Happens when we Obey Jesus!
I was reminded this week of just how special Joseph is.
We had been under the weather off and on all week.
Zoe started running a fever Thursday and Friday
Crystal had a dr appt Friday which meant i was in charge of keeping the kids.
They are 12 and 13 and I was like man who is going to keep these kids not me right?
And they are my own kids.
I can’t imagine what it was like for Joseph who was asked to give up not a day but his whole life for a child that was not even his.
but he did it!
....
so yeah Joseph is special and he is important and he reminds us just how important a good father is in raising kids that obey the Lord and follow after Him.
this morning I want to share with you that if we are really going to celebrate Christmas it is going to be through our spirit empowered Grace filled obedience to the Lord.
This following after Jesus is very often hard and not easy though is it?
We are called on to sacrifice for the sake of his name.
WE are called on to take unpopular stands for His Word.
WE are called on to give our time to him.
We are called on to give our hearts to him.
So here’s my question…
Why is it worth it to follow Jesus?
Why do we do it?
Why do we sacrifice so much in order to Worship Him?
Why do we have Christmas every year where we remember and celebrate His birth?
Why Why why?
Why is he worth our lives, our everything?
The answer is found right here for us in Matthew’s Gospel Chapter 1, Here we see a few different truths about Jesus that show us why He is worth our everything.
I hope this morning you would see that Jesus is worth following.
And that then you would give him your all.
I pray that God would change my heart and yours and remind us that Jesus is worthy of Sacrifice, he is worthy of worship he is worthy of praise!
Let’s read our text.
Let’s Pray.
Let’s talk first about The Pregnancy, you could say it was a
1.
A Gloriously Difficult Pregnancy
I know what its like to hear that you are going to be a parent.
I know what its like to hear, hunny I’m pregnant.
It is not a sound that brings ease into your heart.
Those words still ring in my ears from the first time I heard them.
All of a sudden your life changes.
You realize hey my life isn’t about me anymore.
You realize man now not only is my wife depending on me but so is this little one growing inside her.
IN the best of circumstances it is an unsettling time in the lives of both parents.
But a difficult pregnancy is a whole nother story.
Especially this pregnancy.
We learn first that Joseph and Mary were betrothed which was a way of saying here you guys get married but you can’t be together or live together for a year.
Gee thanks that sounds like fun right?
But that was the deal.
So they had followed the rules and somewhere during this time Joseph gets a call.
Hey man what’s up with that soon to be wife of yours?
She’s pregnant?
Joseph is in a pickle
a.
Joseph is Righteous
i.
He wants to obey the Law
If he goes ahead and marries her it looks like either he is covering up his sin or condoning hers.
ii.
But he doesn’t want Mary Shamed
On the other hand if he makes a big deal out of it she will be shamed and an outcast with no one to care for her.
So he is going to do it all quietly apparently hoping that the father of the child would step in and take care of her and the child.
Like I said a difficult pregnancy but not just difficult, GLORIOUS
There’s a second part to this whole event…basically an angel is sent to tell Joseph what has happened.
He explains this birth is supernatural….
He explains that this birth is the result of God’s work and not man’s, that Mary is pregnant not with the child of a man but that her child is the Son of God!
What an amazing revelation.
Of all the doctrines in the Bible this is the one that is the most confusing and embarrassing for Christians.
In fact there are a lot of people even in the church that want to pretend like it wasn’t a for real virgin birth or that this is not a part of the Christmas story that we should talk about a whole lot.
But it is true as true can be.
God wrapped himself in Human flesh according to Phil 2 he took on the form of a bond servant.
The closest I can get to it in my tiny little feeble brain is to compare it to the power of a nuclear bomb being wrapped in a Twinkies.
I know it doesn’t make sense but neither does the incarnation.
Dr. Milikin one of the profs at Mid America said just think of Carnation milk.
You know how it puts extra weight on you.
Extra flesh.
That is the incarnation God put on flesh and walked among us.
Matthew point us back to
To remind us that this is not a surprise to anyone who knows their bible and the promises God has made.
Mary has never been with a man but she is pregnant just as Isaiah had promised over in Isaiah 7 where he said a virgin will bear a child and his name shall be called Immanuel God with us.
And here we see that God the Holy Spirit uses Matthew to clarify that he was promising that a virgin woman would give birth to God in the Flesh.
So a gloriously difficult pregnancy.
What would you do?
Peace out girly I got my whole life in front of me or would you obey the Lord and take this young girl as your wife or would you run for the hills…
Well it all depends on how valuable you saw this child as.
And we see just how valuable He is when we read the description that the Angel gives us which really circles around…
2. A Wonderfully Hopeful Set of Names
Jesus and Immanuel.
The amount of trouble we will put up with for something shows the amount of worth we attach to that object.
For example think back to the last 10 years or so of Black Friday.
We used to have countless thousands of people stood in line and fought crowds on Black Friday.
Why?
Because they attached a high value to whatever it was they were after, whether it be tvs or xbox or whatever.
Or in my family they are probably all sitting out in the woods somewhere freezing to death in search of that trophy buck.
Why because to them it is worth it.
But this year we went over to NLR on Saturday and it was empty.
And apparently it was no big deal on Black Friday.
You know why? Amazon…people can get the same stuff on Amazon for the same price without getting punched in the face over a dumb tv.
It’s all about how valuable something is.
That’s what decides for us how much energy we will put in to see it happen.
Tomorrow you will get up and go to work and put up with stuff that drives you crazy why?
Because that pay check is worth it.
You get the idea well the same is true here, the angel is explaining why Joseph’s trouble is worth it.
It has to do with
WHAT THIS CHILD WILL DO AND THEN WHO THIS CHILD IS.
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