The Promised Savior

It continues to be a great honor and pleasure to have this time to present the Word of God to the church.

The study of God’s Word has been so refreshing to me lately. In a world bent on muddying the words and relative truth, I am so thankful that there is a biblical truth. I am thankful that there is one source of wisdom and guidance that is life-giving rather than all the other life-sucking voices and media that wish to influence our lives. The Word of God is good for us! As we discussed last week, all of it is breathed-out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness that we may be complete equipped for every good work.

We all need to know and grasp on the most basic level, that we all have a problem. We can look around the world and understand that things aren’t exactly right. We feel discontentment in our circumstances. We see friends and loved ones struggling with ailments and disease. We aren’t satisfied in our jobs, or our home, or our technology. Even those who have just about everything you could possibly imagine want more. Don’t believe me? Turn on any of these reality TV shows that follow around the famous people. Actually, I can’t in good conscience recommend you watch any of those shows about the Kardashians, but the point remains. In those shows you will find people who have it all yet are never satisfied. That is truly the reality of human nature. We are never satisfied.

CS Lewis said, “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. … If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”

The human desire for contentment and soulful satisfaction is real. It is a desire that all of us experience. We try to satiate that desire with a lot of things. I believe that is why the commercialization of Christmas has become so popular. People want to experience hope, peace, joy, and love and so they fabricate the experiences with holiday traditions, gift giving, fairytales, and even charitable works. None of those things are bad things, they just do not fully satiate the humans desire for contentment and soulful satisfaction. That is probably one of the reasons why we go from December, the month in which John’s Hopkins Hospital reports that “We see the fewest reported attempts and fewest new psychiatric appointments in December,” to January, which is known as the Most depressing month of year. Of course other factors are at play in this, but this shows me that the world’s use of holidays to lift the spirits of people may have some temporary value, but it is not lasting. It’s like trying to open a can of spaghetti-o’s with a spoon instead of a can opener. It’s not the right tool for the job.

The desire for spiritual contentment is real. It says in Ecclesiastes that God has put eternity into the heart of man. We want to be eternally fulfilled. But the world only offers us temporary, fleeting solutions to desire. Like drug addicts we go back to that source of temporary satisfaction time and time again, but each time the effect is less and in the back of our minds we know that the cultural, worldly solutions aren’t enough. Implicitly, we all know, even the most self confident among us, know that we can’t satisfy the desire for eternity that is etched upon each of our souls.

So thanks be to God that Jesus said

John 10:10 ESV

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Christ provides the solution to our eternal problem. Christ came to satiate our heart’s desire for eternity. While the devil, the ruler of this world, will only steal, kill, and destroy, Christ came to give life and give life abundantly!

That’s why God’s Word has been so refreshing to me as I mentioned in the beginning! God’s Word reminds us and points us to the factual Jesus who is the actual Savior! Over 4000 years of Human history were pointing to the coming of the promised Savior! For 2000 years we have been looking back at His first coming while simultaneously looking forward to His Second Coming.

We celebrate Christmas because in Jesus, God stepped down from heaven to be our glorious hope. Of course salvation comes through the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross for all those who believe in Him, but that act of grace and saving action had to start somewhere and it started with Jesus being born to a virgin in the city of David, being wrapped and swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger.

In our text today we are going to look at the details we are given in God’s Holy Word about the birth of Jesus Christ. We’re going to see what this passage tells us about God and what this passage tells us about us through Joseph’s reaction to everything going on.

So if you haven’t already, open up to Matthew 1. Today we are going to begin in verse 18. Last week we saw many expressions of God’s grace seen in the lineage of Jesus and the main point we saw was that Jesus is the legitimate heir. His lineage is traced back to David whom was promised to be given a king that would reign forever. Jesus’ link to David proves that He is able to claim such a position. God was true to His promise in giving Jesus to be King of kings and Lord of lords. Now just as an interesting side fact I want to note that because of the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 there are no genealogies left in existence that can trace the ancestry of any Jew now living. Why is this a big deal? One Commentary states, “For those Jews who still look for the Messiah, his lineage to David could never be established. Jesus Christ is the last verifiable claimant to the throne of David, and therefore to the messianic line.” So the lineage we looked at last week established the royal, human connection to God’s promise. Today, we will see the miraculous, divine root of Jesus. He is both the Son of David and the Son of God and that is why He is the Promised Savior, the only hope in our world of Darkness. Let’s look now at the divine nature of Lord Jesus. Read with me Matthew 1:18

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.

In this verse, we discover a great deal about God. Let’s break this down phrase by phrase:

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.”

I don’t want to belabor the point because we talked about this quite a bit last week. But it is a big deal that Jesus is called the Christ. That word means Messiah, Anointed One. In a six letter word as simple as Christ, there is profound meaning and audacious claims. In referring to Jesus as the Christ, Matthew is pointed out to all of the readers of this Gospel that Jesus is the Promised Savior. All the Jews would have been looking for the Savior to come and here he is. I am imploring you to think about the meaning of the connection between Jesus and Christ. It is not a last name. It is a title. A title for which Jesus is the only one worthy!

In Revelation we are told of a scroll upon which is written the judgments of God. It is sealed seven times. An angel proclaims in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open to scroll?” And so they look all over heaven and earth and no one is found worthy. Look at how John, the writer of Revelation responds to fact that no one is worthy:

Revelation 5:4 ESV

and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.

He’s weeping because no one is able. No one is worthy to open this scroll. This is similar to the Israelites, they were looking for the true king, the messiah, the Christ, but no one was worthy. But look at the next verse in Revelation

Revelation 5:5 ESV

And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

The Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Root of David, IS the Messiah, that IS Jesus Christ. He is the Worthy King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the Promised Savior who would come from the line of David!

When we realize who Jesus really is, when we realize that He is more than a fairytale, when we realize that he is more than a man, when we realize that He truly is the Worthy Christ we are consoled in a way similar to that of John. We can WEEP NO MORE as the angel said. We don’t have the hopelessness of not knowing who the Savior is. We don’t have to rely on ourselves to carry every burden anymore! We realize that we are unworthy, but the Christ who lived, died, and rose again on our behalf is worthy when we are not!

He is Worthy!

But let’s return back to Matthew

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.

So first in this verse we see that Jesus is the worthy Christ. Next we see the divine nature of His conception. We learned last Sunday Night that being betrothed in that time was legally binding. So even though the marriage has not been consummated, Mary and Joseph are legally bound together. That will play a big role in what comes up next so just store that away in your mind for a minute.

So Mary and Joseph were bound together in a legal contract to form a new family, but before they came together in on one flesh, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. This is where we get the term, the Miraculous Conception. Now, this is not to be confused with the Immaculate conception. That is a false doctrine that states that Mary her self was free from sin from the moment of her birth, but as you can see in her song in Luke, she was in just as much need of the Savior as all of here today.

The fact is that God, in His perfect timing, decided that Mary who was betrothed to Joseph, would be the mother of the Messiah. This would be a shock to Mary because even though she was an imperfect sinner, she also sought to honor God to through personal holiness. She was chaste and clung to her purity. When we read in Luke about the angel telling her she would become pregnant with the Christ she is confused because she knows she has kept herself from any impure relations. That account proves that Mary’s pregnancy was not from some other man than Joseph.

“But Mary’s virginity protected great deal more than her own moral character, reputation, and the legitimacy of Jesus’ birth. It protected the nature of the divine Son of God. … Had Jesus been conceived by the act of man, whether Joseph or anyone else, He could not have been divine and could not have been the Savior.” (MacArthur Matthew Commentary).

If that were the case, everything else would have been a fanciful fabrication. All the miracles, fake. The resurrection, a sham.

The virgin birth is essential to Christ being who God’s Word says that He is. But this is a hard pill to swallow. Look at the next verse at Joseph’s reaction to Mary’s news of pregnancy.

Matthew 1:19 ESV

And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

So Joseph catches wind that Mary is pregnant. We aren’t told if she talked to him or if he found out from somewhere else. Because of his willingness and desire here to keep everything quiet, I think its likely that she was the one who told him. Take a moment to think about how that conversation went!

Now I’m speculating here, but we see in Luke that an angel appears to Mary and tells her that she will bear a son. I would guess that Mary, being an honest woman, told Joseph about this encounter. But it went about as well as you might expect. “Oh okay, so you’re telling me an angel told you that you would be having God’s baby? You say you didn’t cheat on me? Yeah okay.”

The story that he would have heard is admittedly a WILD story. If that was the conversation that he and Mary had, he didn’t believe it. Verse 19 says that Joseph resolved to put her away quietly. But I want to point out just a few things that we can learn from Joseph’s response to what seemed at the time as truly devastating news. Matthew records that Joseph was a “just” man. The Greek word there is “dikaios” it means just or righteous. Joseph was righteous. He was not perfect, but he was a man that sought to do what is right by the Lord and right by others. We’ll talk about how the situation changes for Joseph in a few moments, but it is interesting to note that in the miraculous encounter Joseph has with the angel, Joseph is never rebuked for doing the wrong thing. Scripture tells us that because Joseph was a righteous man he did not want to put his betrothed wife to shame, so he was going to divorce her quietly. He followed righteous moral standards, he obviously did not approve of infidelity. He did not want to let Mary think that infidelity was okay. So he would put her away. But also, being a loving, just, righteous man, he did not want to have her shamed. He didn’t want to drag her out into the public eye to be ridiculed by the rest of the community.

On a very practical level, Joseph models the appropriate way to confront when someone we love is found in sin.

Christians, born again believers, it is good to seek righteousness. I am not talking about commonly confused self-righteousness. It is good to seek to honor God through righteous living. It is also good to address sin in yourself and in those who are close to you when it does out of a true fear of the Lord. Look at what Jesus says in Luke 17:3

Luke 17:3 ESV

Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him,

We are called to examine ourselves, distance ourselves from temptation, and help those we love do the same! We don’t want to drag them over the coals in front of an audience to make them look bad and us look good by proxy. Righteous rebuking isn’t done for personal benefit, it should always be centered around giving glory and honor to the One who is worthy!

Joseph wanted it be known that infidelity was not okay, but he also did not wish to make a spectacle of the situation. But as we see in the next section of. Verses, its a good thing that Joseph acted calmly and cautiously because boy would he be wrong!

Matthew 1:20–23 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. 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).

As Joseph was considering what he must do because he wanted to honor God with righteous living, God stepped in. God stepped in a big way.

In all truthfulness, that is really the message of Christmas. While humanity was mulling about, God stepped in. He speaks to Joseph through a messenger, through an angel, in Joseph’s dream. What the angel says tells us a lot about God.

First the angel says, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. So God is revealing to Joseph that the situation before him is not the immoral debacle that he perceived. He is confirming that this is truly a miracle and a good thing! Joseph does not Have to fear that participating in this relationship will dishonor God. Rather, it is an honor to be the earthly father of God’s Son. Joseph would be this child’s legal father and have the honor of raising Him.

Then the angel points out just how significant this child will be when the angel tells Joseph the name. “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” You see Jesus is a form of the Hebrew Joshua. which means “Yahweh will save.” We see another man named Joshua in the Old Testament. He would be the one to take the Israelites into the promised land. His life points to the salvation in the Lord. But no one in Scripture would live up to such a name as did Jesus of Nazareth. The angel proclaims to Joseph that this child would not just save people by bringing them to a promised land, but this child would be the one to save people from their sins! He would not only would He testify to God’s salvation, but this child, this Jesus, would BE that salvation. Through His life, death, and resurrection He would save His people from His sins.

So the angel proclaims this to Joseph and the we get a bit of an editorial note from Matthew. He explains the connection between the virgin birth of Jesus and the prophecy that was given centuries earlier. Those words in verses 22-23 are spoken by the prophet Isaiah. If you’re following along in our Bible through a year plan, we just read that yesterday and I didn’t even plan that! But in the context of Isaiah 7, Isaiah is telling king Ahaz of Judah, and really the rest of Israel that even though the nation is going to be punished for its sin, they will be taken over by other Kings, but even still God will preserve the line of David and the Messiah will come. That Messiah will be known by being born of a virgin. When it says his name will be called Immanuel, that is used as a description or title of who this man would be. And as Matthew explains that title means, “God with us.” Jesus is the incarnate deity. While He is fully man, His virgin birth proclaims his fullness of the divine.

Before we look at how Joseph responded to this revelation, take a moment to think of the grandiose nature of everything going on here. Joseph, a righteous man, was ready to leave Mary whom he was legal bound to. He wanted to protect her from extra shame, but he couldn’t stand for infidelity. So God steps in and sends an angel to speak to Joseph in a dream and explain to him why he needs to stay with Mary. The angel shows Joseph that the child is not illegitimate and explains the honor it is to be the legal father of this child.

The virgin birth and the scene as a whole is a lot to take. It is almost unfathomable.

Late Larry King once talked about the historical figures he’d like to interview. One of the people he mentioned was Jesus. Here’s what he said about what he’d like to get from that interview. “I would like to ask Him if He was indeed virgin born, because the answer to that question would define history.”

Larry King lacked the faith to see what was right in front of him in the Word of God. I understand how outrageous is would seem to say that Mary remained a virgin when she conceived Jesus. I know that Joseph also thought that such a claim was unbelievable. Then God stepped in. And look at what happened:

Matthew 1:24–25 ESV

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.

If you want to know why you should believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, look no further than His foster dad Joseph. Joseph had every legal right to put Mary away and walk away from the whole thing. He could of said, I don’t have time for the drama, I’m out. But something changed. God revealed to Him the gravity of the situation he was in. He saw that this child was truly a blessing. He understood his higher calling to look past the social castigation and snickers and be the earthly father of the Son of God.

Through Joseph we are given all the information we need to confirm the virgin birth. Larry King was onto something. He said the answer to whether or not Jesus was born of a virgin would define history. Well Jesus was! And that does define history!

Everything in History points to the need of, the anticipation of, the coming of, the life of, the death of, the resurrection of, the second coming of, and the salvation of none other than Jesus Christ.

We, like Joseph, need to know that Jesus IS the Christ. Jesus is the Savior. That changes our perspective on everything!

Look at how Joseph responded in verses 24-25. He did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, he protected her chastity until after the birth, and he called the child Jesus.

Joseph heard the Word of God through the angel, he believed that the Word was True, he understood the significant need for the Savior, and he responded with obedience.

God doesn’t have to speak to us directly through an angel anymore because He has provided us with His Word. In His Word we are exposed to the reality of our sin and our need of a Savior. His Word shows us that Jesus is that Promised Savior. Fully God Fully Man. The perfect Sacrifice for our sins. The Word of God tells us that if we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that Jesus is Savior we will be saved. Now you have heard the Word of God.

So like Joseph will you believe the Word of God? Or will you reject what you have heard as a fairytale like Larry King, needing more proof. You can search and search for proof but its all right here. right Here in the Word of God. So again I ask, will you believe? And if you believe, will you obey?

If you’ve known Jesus as Savior for a long time, never forget the importance of obedience. Dive into the word, seek to honor Him. Steward the life He has given you for His glory.

If you are just now, today, beginning to see Jesus for the promised Savior that He is, obey by publicly professing Him as Savior. Come forward during this next hymn of response. Jesus calls us to show our faith in front of men. Come forward today as a bold proclamation that you believe Jesus truly is the Promised Savior.

Pray.