Advent Week 5: God With Us

Introduction

Earlier in the week, Lindsey and I were in Ozark with my parents celebrating Christmas and one of our Christmas traditions is doing the Christmas nativity as a family! Since Gabriel entered the family, his role in this has progressed each year and my mom was making sure that all of the pieces were ready to go and she stumbled on a sobering discovery in one of our older nativity sets… Baby Jesus was missing! This was a code red event that was thankfully alleviated because they had another nativity set but it got me thinking of a simple question: What have you done with Jesus to this point in your life? Many people love to celebrate Christmas and they’ll talk about Jesus in the manger - which He certainly was - but lots of people try to keep Jesus in the manger because they don’t like talking about why He came. Other people, like that nativity set, have no room for Jesus in their lives and He’s nowhere to be found in the first place. Wherever you are at with Jesus Christ today, whether you are following Him as Lord, whether you’re nominally interested in Jesus at certain moments, or whether you have done nothing with Jesus at all, I want to dive into a simple question this morning.

Why did He come? This is the question we ponder on Christmas Day. People wonder what is the big deal about Christmas and we pause and think about special memories and fun traditions and meaningful gifts. Here are some quick facts about the way that Americans celebrate this day

90% of Americans and 95% of Christians in the United States celebrate Christmas

Nearly half of Americans believe that Christmas is primarily a religious holiday

Just over half of Americans believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, was visited by wisemen sometime after his birth, and had angels announce his birth to the shepherds

The 217 million American Christmas shoppers will spend $178 billion on Christmas presents and gifts this year - an average of over $800/person!

We love our gifts. We love our Christmas traditions. We love our families. We love our food. But what makes Christmas, Christmas? It’s not about a gift, it’s about THE gift. The gift of our God loving us as sinners enough to send His only Son to the earth not as a prince in a pristine palace, but as the king in a stinky manger. Why would God send His Son as a baby… born to a lowly carpenter… born in a stinky manger? So that He would grow up and save stinky, sinful people. We celebrate a story unlike any other. Other cultures celebrate a baby growing up to become a king and ruling his nation well… Christianity celebrates the King of Kings becoming a baby in order to save the nations.

What a joy it is today to be able to celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ together on Christmas morning. Today we’ll be looking in Matthew 1, as you see in the screen, and we’re going to look at the real significance of Christmas back then and its significance to us today as well.

Matthew 1 CSB

1 An account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham: 2 Abraham fathered Isaac, Isaac fathered Jacob, Jacob fathered Judah and his brothers, 3 Judah fathered Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez fathered Hezron, Hezron fathered Aram, 4 Aram fathered Amminadab, Amminadab fathered Nahshon, Nahshon fathered Salmon, 5 Salmon fathered Boaz by Rahab, Boaz fathered Obed by Ruth, Obed fathered Jesse, 6 and Jesse fathered King David. David fathered Solomon by Uriah’s wife, 7 Solomon fathered Rehoboam, Rehoboam fathered Abijah, Abijah fathered Asa, 8 Asa fathered Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat fathered Joram, Joram fathered Uzziah, 9 Uzziah fathered Jotham, Jotham fathered Ahaz, Ahaz fathered Hezekiah, 10 Hezekiah fathered Manasseh, Manasseh fathered Amon, Amon fathered Josiah, 11 and Josiah fathered Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon. 12 After the exile to Babylon Jeconiah fathered Shealtiel, Shealtiel fathered Zerubbabel, 13 Zerubbabel fathered Abiud, Abiud fathered Eliakim, Eliakim fathered Azor, 14 Azor fathered Zadok, Zadok fathered Achim, Achim fathered Eliud, 15 Eliud fathered Eleazar, Eleazar fathered Matthan, Matthan fathered Jacob, 16 and Jacob fathered Joseph the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus who is called the Messiah. 17 So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations; and from David until the exile to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the exile to Babylon until the Messiah, fourteen generations. 18 The birth of Jesus Christ came about this way: After his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit. 19 So her husband, Joseph, being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her publicly, decided to divorce her secretly. 20 But after he had considered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel, which is translated “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph woke up, he did as the Lord’s angel had commanded him. He married her 25 but did not have sexual relations with her until she gave birth to a son. And he named him Jesus.

Matthew 1 begins the New Testament by looking backward in order to move forward. In order for us to understand Who Jesus is and what Jesus has done, we first have to understand where Jesus came from and why He had to come in the first place. This is Matthew’s goal in this opening chapter. The King has Come! Waiting is no more. God has answered the cries of His people and He has done so by sending a baby. Friend, God continues to hear His people today. He sent His Son. He loves His children. Do you belong to Jesus today?

The People in Christmas (1-17)

Who is Jesus Christ? This is the question that many people already think that they know. 76% of Americans believe that Jesus was a real, historical person… The Bible tells us that even the Demons believe that though. What do people actually believe about Jesus Christ? Many people say that He was a great teacher, a wise counselor, an advocate for justice, a powerful speaker, and a mysterious healer… all of these things are true, but Jesus better be more than just a good teacher or a nice guy or a person that we go to when we’re a little upset but only 1x a week or when its convenient. Who is Jesus Christ? Matthew tells us the answer in verse 1 of the New Testament. This Jesus is the Christ and the Son of David and the Son of Abraham.

We see in the New Testament the word Christ follow Jesus often. So often in fact that there are some who believe that it is His last name… That’s not true, though. Christ is a title which means the anointed one - this is a designation of a king and was promised to King David hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth that from Him would come a king who would reign forever and ever. Literally if you see the words Jesus Christ those words break down like this, “Jesus” or “God saves” and Christ or “Anointed One.” In other words even Jesus’ name is significant because they describe Who He is and what He has come to do. He is the King who has come to save - which is what Luke’s Gospel tells us

Luke 19:10 CSB

10 For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”

This is good news! But this isn’t where Matthew stops. He hits on humanity of Jesus here - He is the anointed King who is the Son of David and the Son of Abraham. Matthew, written to a primarily Jewish audience, uses King David 17x in his Gospel to highlight how this Jesus of Nazareth is in fact the promised King from David’s line who will be the Messiah and save His people. Not to be confused with just saving the people of Israel, though, Matthew in his opening verse also states that Jesus is the Son of Abraham. Are you ready for some good news today? How many of you here today are ethnic Jews? If all that Jesus does is help the Jewish people then we’re up a creek without a paddle. This is bad news bears. What Jesus does is He fulfills God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12 to bless all the nations of the earth

Genesis 12:1–3 CSB

1 The Lord said to Abram: Go from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

Here God shares good news for all the nations of the earth. He will have a covenant people who will be blessed by God and used by God for a global purpose. How do we know this? Because of the list of people that follow from verses 2-16! Matthew lists Jesus’ genealogy and this list can be easy to gloss over because, after all, who likes looking at obscure names that we only seem to read about 1 or 2 times every year? What’s the big deal about a genealogy? 2 things

Jesus’ genealogy list verifies His humanity

Jesus’ genealogy list demonstrates God’s intentionality

So many people in Jesus’ day and in the years since have believed false teachings about who He was. Many today believe that Jesus was a real man but He wasn’t really God. Throughout the years the opposite teaching was believed: Jesus was God but not really a person… He just looked like a man but He wasn’t really a person like you and me. This genealogy list helps prove that He was a person. He fulfills promises God made to Abraham and David and others by being born in their lineage. He was a true human.

This genealogy also demonstrates God’s intentionality to use and save people from all walks of life. For the people who say that God only cares about ethnic Jews, there are gentiles in this lineage. For the person who says that God only cares about men, there are 4 women listed in this lineage. For the person who says that God only cares about rich people, there are very poor people listed in this lineage. Why? This doesn’t seem like a very powerful lineage to descend from? That’s the point. God uses weak, insignificant, outcast, and poor people for His glory and the good of others! God is so powerful that He can even use someone like you or me for His purposes! This lineage is so purposeful that it makes no sense to make it up. It would have had no added benefit to include certain people the way that Matthew did… Yet under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, this is what we have. Why? To demonstrate that God uses evil kings, societal outcasts, broken relationships, unfaithful leaders, and faithful followers for His sovereign purposes. He uses the good kings and the bad ones for a purpose as Daniel tells us, He raises them up and He brings them back down.

The people in the Christmas story matter because they point us to King Jesus - the hero and center of history! In our world everyone seems to think that the world revolves around them… The fact of the matter is that there’s only one person big enough to occupy that spot and it’s not us, it’s Jesus! CS Lewis appropriately shared that there are only 3 options when it comes to your view of Jesus. He’s either a liar, lunatic, or He is the Lord that He claimed to be all along. Who do you say that Jesus is?

The Problem of Christmas (18-19)

Based on how you answer that question, you might run into a problem or two, and this is what we see next in our text. We see that Mary and Joseph are engaged (these engagements usually lasted 1 full year) but before they were officially married, a discovery was made… Mary was pregnant. We talked last week in Ruth 4 about how problems require solutions and this problem certainly requires a solution. Joseph knows that he is not the father which means that obviously Mary hasn’t been faithful to him. Legally, Joseph had the right in this moment to have Mary stoned to death as Deuteronomy 22:23-24 tells us! This presents a significant problem… but Joseph chooses to have mercy on Mary and he makes the decision to divorce her secretly because it appears as though she has been unfaithful.

What are some of the other problems in this Christmas story? We read in Luke’s Gospel that Mary and Joseph had to travel a long way just to get to Bethlehem for this Roman census. There was a travel problem for Mary and Joseph and there was also a trust problem between Mary and Joseph at this point.

What are some problems that people have with Christmas today?

The nominal Christian is tempted to make Christmas all about themselves and not about Christ

The secular person rejects the Christmas story in the first place because it’s too supernatural

The faithful born-again believer often fails to see Christmas for what it truly is

What is Christmas all about? God’s Word answers this as Matthew continues in our text

The Providence in Christmas (20-21)

In the midst of the darkness, God always provides light in His perfect time. The word providence simply means that God oversees and works out His plans for His creation. Often God does this in ways that we don’t always see in the moment but we notice clearly after the fact. Think of a way that God has provided for you in a way that you didn’t realize at the time. Maybe it was missing out on something that you were really looking forward to only to find out that God had a different plan. Maybe it was as simple as driving behind slow traffic and hitting a red light only to see an accident happen on the other side of the intersection. God provides, even when we don’t fully “get it”! My dad is the missions pastor at FBC Ozark and before he surrendered to ministry he worked in Springfield at TCBY - a frozen yogurt franchise - and he made his way up the ranks to become the manager! They had their best selling quarter in years and my dad was called into his bosses office and was told that they were closing down all of the Springfield TCBY stores and that after today, he would no longer have a job. That doesn’t make much sense, does it? Fast forward a few months and a member of his church in Springfield offered to help pay for him to take pastoral classes at SBU so that he could be the children and recreation pastor at FBC Springfield. That never would have been on his radar had he not lost his job. God provides in unexpecting ways!

Here Joseph is convinced after some careful thought that the best thing to do was divorce Mary and do so respectfully. He made a plan… then God blew it up! Have you ever played with an etcha-sketch before? I was never good at using them but I’ve seen some remarkable drawings on them! You could work for an hour on the drawing and carefully plan your every move but with one wrong turn, you could ruin your entire drawing and in frustration you could erase all of your work! Isn’t that a metaphor for our lives at times? We make these elaborate plans but so often they are ruined with one tiny inconvenience. God’s Word tells us this truth in Proverbs 16:9

Proverbs 16:9 CSB

9 A person’s heart plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps.

Planning isn’t bad, it’s good! It would be a weird thing for you and I to never have a plan… but we have to realize who we are and who God is. We make our plans in pencil knowing that God alone plans in pen. You could say that God picked up Joseph’s etcha-sketch, shook it up a little bit, and drew something new for him in verses 20-21 as God shares His plan with Joseph. This is good news! Joseph is instructed not to divorce Mary but to take her as his wife because she is pregnant with none other than the very Son of God! Talk about an unexpected message. How is God providing here? For one He is providing for Mary as Joseph reverses course and doesn’t divorce her. But God also provides for Jesus here. How so? Look back to the genealogy of Jesus Christ in verse 16. Matthew traces Jesus’ genealogy through Joseph… not Mary. This doesn’t make much sense! Joseph isn’t Jesus’ biological father. How can he play that role? By adopting Jesus into his family. See, in Jesus’ day if you were adopted, you received all of the titles and respect of your adopted father just as though you were his biological child. Meaning this: How can Jesus be called the Son of David? By being adopted by Joseph, the son of David.

God provides in the Christmas story for Mary and Joseph and even Jesus… but He also provides for you and I as verse 21 concludes with what Jesus will eventually do: Save His people from their sins. The God of the Bible continues to provide today, church. How do we know this? Because Jesus still saves His people from their sins today. Only God has the power to do this! Are you apart of “His people” today? Has God provided you with salvation? Is Jesus your Savior?

The Purpose of Christmas (22-25)

See, this is the most important question of all, and only you can answer this question for yourself. Christmas is a day worth celebrating but probably not for the common reasons that our world celebrates it. The purpose of Christmas isn’t trees and presents. It isn’t hot chocolate and candy canes. It isn’t snow and snowmen. What do we celebrate and why do we celebrate it?

What is Christmas all about? To quote CS Lewis, “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.” You know the song Hark the Herald Angels Sing! don’t you?

Mild He lays His glory by Born that man no more may die Born to raise the sons of earth Born to give them second birth

What is the purpose of Christmas? It’s not just a baby and a manger. Shame on us if we stop there! Jesus came here on a rescue mission to defeat our greatest enemy and to redeem us from the penalty of our sins! He was born so that you and I would be assured of our present salvation and future resurrection

Galatians 4:4–5 CSB

4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

he problem with our country and with our world is that 90% are fine celebrating a baby in a manger… but they draw the line when it comes to celebrating a crucified and resurrected King.

Why did Jesus have to come? Why did God have to come to the earth? Because we need saving from our sins and because we can’t save ourselves! See, what you and I deserve is God’s condemnation, but what we receive by grace through faith in Christ is God’s grace. Do you want to know the great news about Jesus? Jesus isn’t a legalist like Santa Claus. He’s not making a list and checking it twice to make a file about all of your good and bad actions… If that’s what He did, we’d all be guilty and we’d get far worse than coal from Him. Jesus came to this earth and He gives His people peace, joy, grace, hope, and redemption! Many of us know John 3:16 by heart but did you know that the verses that follow are just as important?

John 3:17 CSB

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

This is the purpose of Christmas. This is God’s plan of redemption and rescue. Not by sending a teacher. Not by sending a counselor. Not by sending a mighty warrior. Not by sending a president. Not by sending an angel… But God sent His Son. Christmas isn’t the beginning of Jesus’ story, He has existed for all eternity. But at Christmas, we celebrate that our God remained all that He was and also became what He was not. The purpose of Christmas in three word is Life, Light, and Love. God loved the world so much that He didn’t leave us in darkness without hope… so He sent His Son, the Light of the World. Jesus the Son of God and the Son of David, fully-God and fully-man, has been born… God has come to the earth. God is with us and our God provides us with life everlasting!

For that reason, Christmas Still Matters Today for many reasons, let’s close with 3:

Jesus Really Was Born in Bethlehem

The evidence is clear, even outside of Scripture, that Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical person. The Biblical account tells us that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Micah in Micah 5:2 hundreds of years before His birth. Christmas marks the day in which light invaded the domain of darkness and the light of the world promises to never experience a power outage. Jesus was really born in Bethlehem and that matters in our world that believes that Jesus is more myth than man. He was a real person. No credible historian would dispute that claim.

Jesus Really Was Fully-God and Fully-Man

We know from our text this morning, though, that Jesus wasn’t just a man. He was fully-man. He was born of a human mother, Mary. He is this promised seed of the woman as Genesis 3:15 promises thousands of years before His birth. Every other time we see this appear it’s in reference to the seed of a man… but not so with Jesus. This is so important because Jesus does not inherit a fallen, sinful nature like you and I automatically inherit.

Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Jesus Christ was tempted. John 11:35 tells us that Jesus wept. John 4:6 tells us that Jesus was thirsty and tired. Jesus was fully-man. But He was also fully-God. He didn’t stop being God whenever He came to the world. Erik Raymond shares this, “The Redeemer had to be truly human in order to suffer and sympathize. The Redeemer had to be truly divine in order to satisfy and secure.” This is Jesus! Fully-God and fully-man. Only a human could save humans and only God could satisfy God’s perfect justice.

Jesus Really Does Save Sinners

Ultimately, Christmas matters to us because of what Jesus continues to do! Matthew 1:21 tells us that Jesus will save His people from their sins and this is what Jesus alone can do for sinful humans. The Bible tells us that you and I have fallen short of God’s perfect standard. We have sinned. We might not think that’s a big deal, but the Bible tells us that sin makes us deserving of God’s wrath! This baby that was born 2000 years ago lived a sinless life… He died a sinners death… He rose victorious after 3 days… He alone saves sinners. Christmas matters today because the Christmas story marches onward to this day. Friend, have you repented of your sins and placed your faith in Christ as Lord and Savior? Have you trusted in Immanuel? Has He redeemed you and forgiven your sins once and for all? If not, today can be the day where the Christmas story becomes your story as the God who sent His Son into this world will send His Spirit inside your heart to be with you forever. Is God with you today?