Matthew 1:18–25; Isaiah 7:10–16, "Asking For a Sign"

Ken MacLeod

Prayer • Sermon • Submitted a year ago • Presented a year ago

Isaiah gives Ahaz the sign of Immanuel

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When do you most need a sign? When you’re lost. The first time I drove a truck into New York City, I had a set of directions that were helpful up to a point. That point was where the sign said, no trucks on the bridge that would take me to the highway I wanted. I ended up on side streets in the Bronx. There’s nothing scarier than being lost in New York city in a truck filled with thousands of dollars of product. What I needed more than anything was another sign. A sign that it was going to be okay, that would tell where to go to find safe passage to my destination (in my case the Fulton Fish Market on South Street, Manhattan).

Being lost in a truck is one thing. When your whole world is threatened with destruction and the people have lost their way, wouldn’t you pray for a sign from God to give you direction on the path to salvation?

What are some signs people have been looking to for direction in our own time? Discuss.

The first century was a time in the western world much like our own. A major superpower dominated the western world. It kept peace through taxes, military power, and fear. Constantly threatened by nations to the east, it created unity through idolatrous worship of anything but God. For good people who wanted to live righteous lives and do justice and worship the living God, life was hard. They were praying for a sign from God. For direction and the hope of salvation. And God answered. The sign God gave two thousand years ago is still pointing our way to salvation from our sins, and overcomes fear.

What are some ways fear keeps people from living fruitful lives and enslaved to sin?

Jesus Overcomes Fear

Looking at our passage in Matthew 1, we meet Joseph. Joseph is a just man, a righteous person. He wants to do the right thing. God is at work, but He is doing something new and unexpected. The categories in Joseph’s mind he’s using to judge the situation aren’t wrong. They're just incomplete

Our previous experiences with God can lead us to some preconceptions about what God will and will not do. We should be open to God working in ways we have not experienced before. For example, would any of us be open to God speaking to us through an angel in a dream? While that might not be our previous experience, as we see here, God has done it before and I believe He can do it again. In fact, He’s doing it now in some parts of the world.

Having said that, God will never work in ways that contradict His character and word. God had made a promise to send a savior, a messiah, who would save his people from their sins. The angel’s words to Joseph in the dream reassure Joseph that God is fulfilling His promise. The baby his fiancee has conceived is from the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 1:20 (ESV)

But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

What is so significant about this? In Genesis, the Holy Spirit brooded over creation like a mother bird to bring order to chaos and give life to our world. So, this new life in Mary is the direct work of the Holy Spirit. What’s the sign? A new creation is beginning. Matthew clues us in to this by using the word “genesis” in verse 18.

Matthew 1:18 (ESV)

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

The word “birth” is the Greek word, “genesis”. God is working as He did in the beginning. He is making our world new.

New beginnings can be scary. We fear the unknown. We fear being lost on paths we haven’t taken before. We fear failure in a new venture. Joseph was afraid because he wanted to do the right thing, but trusting that God was doing something that had never been done before was hard.

If we look again at the angel’s message, how can it help overcome fear?

Matthew 1:20 (ESV)

God is working. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives life and order to emptiness and chaos. He did it in creation. But because we are disordered in our sin, He’s doing it in a new way through Jesus the Savior.

Some of us might fear surrendering to the work of the Holy Spirit.

Maybe you fear that He will take something away from you. You can be sure He will. He will take away everything you turn to for comfort that isn’t God. Joseph would have to give up his reputation, his pride, his plans for his marriage and family in order for Jesus to save His people from their sins.

Maybe you fear Him asking you to do something you can’t do. You can be sure He will. In 2017, three of us went with Pastor Arthur Demosthenes to Canaan, Haiti to see the work he does there. He had asked me to prepare a couple of messages to preach, and I had a few sermons in my Bible.

When we got to our gate at Logan Airport, he told me that our main focus for the week would be working on reconciling the Christians who had recently split the church in two. He said that another New England pastor had backed out of the trip when he found out, and Arthur had waited to tell me until we were well on our way. He said I would preach several messages at both churches and he would spend the rest of the week meeting with church leaders and working on reconciliation. I was blindsided and a little lost. What could I say to these people in a culture I didn’t understand who were fighting over something I didn’t understand? But I could hear the Holy Spirit saying, “You can do this. Put away your sermon notes and listen to me.”

So I each time I spoke, I read a passage from the New Testament on love, and the Holy Spirit provided me with words. By the end of the week, I realized Arthur’s wisdom in having an outside pastor come preach the scriptures, and his working hard behind the scenes, and the Holy Spirit worked in those church leaders to come to an agreement about how they would share gospel ministry in that community. If I had given in to fear, I may have missed an opportunity to see the Holy Spirit work.

What are some things we fear the Holy Spirit might do that scare us?

Fear can lead us to withhold ourselves from the work of the Holy Spirit. Instead of surrendering to God, we resist Him.

The angel told Joseph, even though God may be doing something you’ve never experienced before, do not fear. The Holy Spirit is at work to begin a new creation. And God will complete it through Jesus Christ, the Savior.

Jesus Completes God’s Work

What is the work God completes in Christ? The angel tells Joseph,

Matthew 1:21 (ESV)

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

What is sin? What does it mean to be saved from our sins?

Sin is any failure to conform to God’s righteousness according to His moral law and is an offense against God. Sin brings chaos, disorder, emptiness, fear, and death. Every one of us has sinned and needs a new creation. Jesus is the savior who completes that work.

As Matthew records the angel’s words to Joseph, he sees that this is really the completion of another sign God had given in the past to someone else that was lost and afraid and needed salvation. In Matthew, the angel speaks to Joseph, son of David. And Matthew tells us,

Matthew 1:22–23 (ESV)

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

Here’s the backstory. Another son of David, King Ahaz of Judah lived 740 years before Joseph, son of David, betrothed to Mary. King Ahaz was nothing like his ancestor David. David was a man after God’s own heart. Ahaz’s heart went after every other god and idol he could get his hands on. He visited the king of Syria and saw a beautiful altar in the temple of his god. When Ahaz returned to Jerusalem, he tore apart all the furniture in the temple to the One True and Living God and replaced it with the idolatrous stuff. He did everything he could to offend God.

The king of Syria turned on Ahaz and united with the king of Israel to attack Ahaz and Judah. The prophet Isaiah records,

Isaiah 7:2 (ESV)

When the house of David was told, “Syria is in league with Ephraim,” the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

When Matthew reflects on the angel’s words to Joseph, he sees some parallels. We have a son of David in each event and we have a messenger coming to each to tell them not to fear. There is one major difference. Where Joseph was a just, righteous man, Ahaz is wicked. But God demonstrated His grace in this way,

Isaiah 7:3–4 (ESV)

And the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-jashub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer’s Field.

And say to him, ‘Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remaliah.

Then God promised that He would not allow them to succeed. And He said,

Isaiah 7:9 (ESV)

“‘If you are not firm in faith,

you will not be firm at all.’ ”

Then, God spoke again to Ahaz,

Isaiah 7:10–13 (ESV)

Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz: “Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.”

But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.” And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also?

Then the words we read every Advent:

Isaiah 7:14 (ESV)

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

Here is Ahaz, the faithless son of David, in all his sin and rebellion against God. He is terrified and needs a sign from God to get him back on course. God says, “Pick the sign you want.” He is so consumed by his sin, he resists God even in this. So God gives him a sign. The “virgin” will bear a son and call his name Immanuel, which means God with us. The word for “virgin” in Hebrew just generally means “young maiden”. And we find out later that the young maiden in question is the wife of Isaiah, not a virgin. So, the sign to Ahaz is not a miraculous virgin birth. The sign is the meaning of the name given to the child. God is with us. This was a sign to Ahaz that he should not fear. God would come personally to save him.

As Matthew reflected on the events around Jesus’ virgin birth, this record from the prophet Isaiah came to mind. God had done something for a wicked son of David that He is going to fulfill in an even bigger and now miraculous way through the family of a righteous son of David that will save all wicked people everywhere.

In other words, Jesus is God who has come among us as a sign that everyone enslaved by fear and sin can be saved. He has completed the work of salvation. There is no more to fear.

Application: what choices are you making out of fear rather than faith? It’s easy to get lost sometimes. Jesus is God’s sign to you that He is among us, He saves, and this is a sign both for good people who want to do the right thing, and wicked people who have used their whole life to offend God. Every one of us can be saved by Jesus.

Communion

Questions for Discussion

Can you share about a time when you were lost and needed help getting back on the right way?

When we read about the birth of Jesus in Matthew 1, what are some things that stand out to you? What do we learn about God?

Have God done something new in your life that you found challenging to accept?

In what ways have you found fear keeps you from growing in faith?

What do we learn from this passage about the Holy Spirit? How do you describe the role of the Holy Spirit in your life? What are some questions you have about that?

What do we learn about Jesus in this passage?

In what ways have you experienced salvation from sins through Jesus?

What is the significance of knowing that Jesus is “God with us”? How do you find that challenging and/or helpful in your daily living?