Jesus, My Savior and Lord
Notes
Transcript
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. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 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. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 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). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.
Scripture: Matthew 1:18-25
Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 29-30, 34-35
Sermon Title: Jesus, My Savior and Lord
A while back I preached through the Heidelberg Catechism, and you might remember that I didn’t hit every single question and answer. Especially when we got to the section on the Apostles’ Creed, a number of the Questions and Answers break down the statements of our beliefs about Jesus. I skimmed over the section in my series, but now seems like a good time to refresh our beliefs regarding the second person of the Trinity.
We confess in the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.” Earlier in the service we looked at questions and answers 29 and 30, which deal with the very first part, “I believe in Jesus,” and then, also, questions and answers 34 and 35, which deal with Jesus’ Holy Spirit involved conception and being born of Mary, a virgin.
Before we get to our passage, I want to back up in the Catechism to questions and answers 21 and 22. Those are part of Lord’s Day 7, which deals with faith. The Catechism defines true faith, in part, as “a sure knowledge by which I hold as true all that God has revealed to us in Scripture.” That’s Q and A 21. 22 lays out that a Christian must believe “all that is promised us in the gospel, a summary of which is taught us in the [Apostles’ Creed].”
It’s important for us to remember that Christians across many different denominations and traditions ground ourselves in the essentials of the Apostles’ Creed. We might differ on many issues and interpretations of various passages, which has significant impact on what is acceptable and practiced in our churches. But if a person can confess these truths, which summarize Scripture, then we enter a road to seeing them as a brother or sister in the faith. With the Apostles’ Creed, we also recognize the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds capturing orthodox, or true Christian beliefs.
Our churches, the CRC, RCA, and like-minded denominations also hold to the three forms of unity—the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort. These three summaries of biblical teaching are unique to the Calvinist Reformed tradition. I bring this up because much of what we find in the Heidelberg Catechism, when it summarizes the Apostles’ Creed, gets us back to the essentials. So even though the Catechism’s teachings are distinctly Reformed, this section includes many things which all Christians ought to agree on.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, I’m confident that all of us are familiar with this passage or at least with the events unfolding around it. Whether we’re young or old, we know this account or the other gospel accounts of an angel coming into the lives of a young woman named Mary and a man named Joseph to tell them about a miraculous pregnancy and the birth of a son. From here, we, of course, follow their trek to Bethlehem because a census was decreed. Then we travel to the off-the-Main Street place where they lodged because there was no room for them in the inn. And then comes a newborn baby boy placed in a manger.
Sometimes we use the word “scandal” to describe Mary’s pregnancy. It was a scandal because this would have caused a stir. It was scandalous back then, just as it likely would be considered in our communities today: a young woman getting pregnant before her wedding day. That’s not us reading our ideas into the text. No, we’re told in verse 19, when Joseph found out about this child, he was ready to walk away, and he planned to do so in a gracious, quiet way.
Our first point this afternoon is looking at Mary’s conception of Jesus. Let’s look at that through the question, why did Joseph stick around? Joseph knew he was not the biological father of this child. Mary had not gotten pregnant because of any relations between the two of them. Even for a righteous man and a typically trustworthy fiancé, I assume that at least the question of what Mary had been up to when they weren’t together would have crossed Joseph’s mind.
Why did he stay with her, though? Matthew tells us something twice, he makes sure that we get the message. The first time was at the end of verse 18, “Before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.” Maybe it’s included there because this was what Mary had told her husband-to-be. Likely an angel had already visited her and told her the strange yet amazing news. Mary believed the angel, she believed that she was with child, and if she didn’t, pretty soon her body would prove it to her. I imagine she sat Joseph down one day, and told him, “I know it’s going to sound crazy. You probably have some questions. I’m going to have a baby. Trust me, I haven’t been with anyone! It’s of the Holy Spirit, this child is of God.”
Mary and Joseph seem like two very average, regular people. There’s nothing outstanding about them, nothing to draw our attention to them. They weren’t celebrities or pro athletes or royalty or eclectic people whose lives other people were nosey about. No, Joseph and Mary are the neighbors down your block or the couple whose house you drive past on your way into town. Maybe you know them well, maybe you don’t, but you can tell that they’re normal folks. Yet they’ve got an angel or angels appearing to them. The second time we hear the repeated line for why Joseph stuck around is in verse 20, “An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.’” In our day, dreams aren’t generally seen as true or bearing much meaning, but Joseph knew this one was real and true: his virgin bride-to-be was going to give birth to a child conceived by the Holy Spirit.
Matthew connects the dots for us, giving us the quotation from Isaiah 7:14, “‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Immanuel’—which means, ‘God with us.’” If we go back to Isaiah 7, right before that line used in Matthew 1:23, it also says, “‘Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.’” How was Israel and how was the world to see that God was sending the Messiah, his anointed one? He wasn’t just going to appear in some purely divine form. He wasn’t going to show up by appearing out of thin air as an adult male. No, it would be an event so clear, a virgin giving birth to the child.
Heidelberg Catechism Answer 35 points out that Jesus being born of Mary emphasizes how God “took to himself, through the working of the Holy Spirit, from the flesh and blood of the virgin Mary, a truly human nature,” so that Jesus is like us in every way but sin. Part of Jesus, the Son of God, being born as a child explains to us that he is fully human and fully divine.
But is the detail that Mary was a virgin important? There are also scholars who have recently proposed that Mary begin a virgin really just means she was a young or marriage-age woman. The Greek and Hebrew words can also be translated to mean that, separate from a young woman’s sexual activity. So, these scholars believe maybe she was a virgin, but that detail isn’t necessary. While scholars are questioning things like that, it is important that we hold to the historical interpretation of the Bible regarding this. That Mary really is a virgin emphasizes that this is wholly God’s work in bringing about this child. It’s a fulfillment of a promise made long ago, and it was credible enough that it kept the man who would raise the child in the family when this experience made him want to leave. Jesus was conceived of a virgin.
We move now into our second and third points which are looking to answer who is this child? Our second point is Jesus is our Savior. Verse 21, continuing the message of the angel to Joseph, “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” If you have your Bibles open still, you can look down to the footnotes, and it likely says for verse 21, “Jesus is the Greek form of Joshua, which means the Lord saves.” The name that the angel gave to these parents to call their son, while a common name, describes what he will do.
Other children were named Joshua or Jesus, but for this coming baby and the person he would grow up into, his name was important. It’s not that Jesus couldn’t be named something else and still accomplish the task or mission that he was sent for. But again, this was a sign for Mary and Joseph, this was a sign for God’s people, a sign that continues down to us today.
It’s interesting when you look at the bigger narrative of what was happening around the birth of Jesus, and while the Lord is seeking to save, we encounter Herod in chapter 2 verse 13 trying unsuccessfully to kill this “king of the Jews.” The Lord must save Jesus already in this early stage because the forces of evil were seeking to defeat his purpose. Also, when we move into the adult life of Jesus in John 1:29, the first words that John the Baptist is recorded as saying about him is, “‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’” That is a proclamation fitting to the Savior’s name, and what he came for.
We know salvation came through Jesus not only being born, but his living obediently and being willing to die on the cross. He suffered the agony of our sins and all that we deserve, and he rose again to give us new life. As I preached this morning, he is the only Savior from sins and God’s just punishment. I invite you to turn in your pew Bibles to Romans 5 with me. Romans 5 gives us so much detail about what Jesus has done specifically on our behalf. In verses 1 and 2, we read, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.” Jump to verse 6, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” Verse 8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Go to verse 10, “For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” Finally, verse 15, “But the gift,” speaking of saving grace won by Jesus for us, “is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!”
Not only are those verses a beautiful testimony to God’s plan of salvation, but they also make clear what we confessed in questions and answers 29 and 30. Jesus was sent by God for the specific purpose of being our savior. “Salvation should not be sought and cannot be found in anyone else…In him [we have all we need] for our salvation.” It cannot be received in Jesus plus saints, not in Jesus plus good works; or in anything minus Jesus. Salvation is the complete work of God through the finished work of Jesus and the continuing work of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus was sent by God through a virgin, he is our Savior, and he is our Lord. This is our final point this evening. The answer to question 34 as to why we call Jesus “Lord” is, “Because—not with silver or gold, but with his precious blood—he has set us free from sin and from the tyranny of the devil, and has bought us, body and soul, to be his very own.” Not only does Jesus save us from our punishment, but he has freed us from slavery to sin. He has bought us and claimed us as his own. The Old Testament actions of God with Israel are glimpses or foreshadowing of this much fuller work. God set the Israelites free from Egypt, free from the tyranny of their oppressors who enslaved them. He redeemed Israel. They weren’t to go back to Egypt. And to solidify this, he made them a proper nation with a home, with his leading, with him as their power.
Often when we think of Lord, that word also brings to mind political tones and respect for seniority. To call someone other than a ruling leader “lord” could be seen as opposition. Jesus is that too. Though he didn’t war against and destroy the Roman government that was in place in first century Jerusalem, make no mistake. There is not a government or ruler in place who Jesus cannot defeat, who is able to stand against his decrees if he seeks to accomplish them through a leader. There is no ruler who can ever consider themselves to be equal to Lord Jesus. He alone is Lord of Lords, and he exercises his authority and dominion over all things, including the church.
Brothers and sisters, will we serve out of gratitude and joy the one who has saved us and set us free? May the confession that Jesus is “My Savior and My Lord” not just become a formality, not just something Christians say, but may what Christ has done for you and me cause ongoing change in our hearts, in our minds, and in our lives. May we be moved further and further away from agreeing with our sinful nature, and seek to be made more and more like Jesus. Amen.