Jesus, Saviour of His People
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English Standard Version Chapter 1
18 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. 19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 20 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. 21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(which means, God with us). 24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.
OPENING REMARKS
OPENING REMARKS
Whereas last weeks passage covered the story of Mary, this week’s scripture covers the story from Joseph’s side.
He is visited by an angel in a dream and this angel brings encouragement to Joseph, allays his fears and tells Him something about who his new son will grow up to be.
Our focus this Sunday, the third Sunday in Advent is on joy. Why at Christmas do we sing about and celebrate joy? Why is joy so central to the life of a Christian. Today as we look at this passage of scripture, detailing Joseph’s encounter with an angel I believe we will understand something of joy, perhaps something we haven’t appreciated before.
Perhaps you’ve experienced joy before? We can experience it as an emotion, like a great wave of elation upon hearing some good news or succeeding at something you had been working hard at. Sometimes joyfulness hits us like a rocket, we can’t contain it! Like when that second England goal went in against Germany in summer. Sometimes joyfulness comes to us more like a deep sense of comfort and relief. I remember when Phoebe was born I felt like that, I was just so glad she had finally arrived after what seemed like the longest few days in hospital. However joy can be more than a feeling that we experience, it is also a state of being in which we can exist.
17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
It makes total sense that the Kingdom of God, being so utterly different than the kingdom of this world should be marked by joy. The apostle John says that the whole world lies under the power of the evil one; and that’s not hard to believe when we look around and see so much pain and so much suffering. I read somewhere that the number of children and young people suffering from depression and anxiety in this country has skyrocketted over the last decade. The kingdom of darkness is marked by sorrow, despair and depression. It’s against this black backdrop that God’s kingdom breaks in. His Church, His people are people of His Kingdom. We are a people who have the Kingdom of God within us; a Kingdom of joy a Kingdom of light. Yes, we will experience loss and sorrow in this world, Jesus promised that we would, yes we will have to walk through deep valleys, where the shadow of death lurks. Some of us may even walk through seasons of anxiety, and depression that feel so black we wonder if we’ll ever see light at the end of the tunnel. But this where we access joy in those seasons; we know that this life isn’t all there is. We know that all this life is just a drop in the ocean of eternity. We have the joy of knowing that;
17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
It’s not in the absence of trial and suffering that the joy of the Kingdom shines brightest through you, but it’s when you can access joy in the midst of those troubles that the world really takes notice.
Which brings us to Joseph. His wife to be, Mary is pregnant, and Joseph knows it isn’t his. We can imagine how difficult this would have been for Mary, but often we forget about Joseph. How might he have been feeling at this time? He lives in a small town, everyone knows everyone, and he is facing a scandal. Perhaps he was also feeling confused and bewildered, perhaps hurt and rejected. We are told that he was a just man and that he had resolved to divorce Mary quietly rather than expose her for what he believed to be a serious sin. Perhaps this tells us a little bit about the kind of man that the Holy Spirit chose to be Jesus’s earthly father, a gentle man, not rash or vindictive.
It challenges us to think about how we respond when we thing someone has sinned against us. We may forgive them but do we want to cover their sin? Keep them from scorn and ridicule?
An angel from the Lord visits Joseph in his sleep and tells him the truth about Mary’s pregnancy; she is pregnant, but by the Holy Spirit, not another man. Think what joy this message from heaven would have brought to Joseph, all that weight upon his shoulders would have disappeared in a moment, all that worry and trepidation gone in an instant.
How I wish an angel would just show up in my sleep every now and again! But we can have a message from God, any time we need one, we have His holy word to us in the scriptures. Isn’t it odd that when we are feeling low the last place our flesh wants us to go is the Bible! But that’s exactly the place we should go, it’s there that we hear His message for us just like Joseph heard. It’s hearing and believing God’s word over our lives that lifts our burndens and let’s us know the joy of the Lord.
Sometimes it’s not just about finding a verse which speaks to your particular problem, sometimes it’s about emersing yourself so deeply in the scriptures that you almost lose youself. As your life story becomes intertwined with God’s story through out history you become deeply satisfied at taking up your tiny little part in His great, sweeping sovereign plan, and you see that this mighty God actually knows you, and loves you, and wrote that little part that you’re playing just for you, in His eyes you matter. Wow!
The angel tells Joseph to take Mary for his wife and to call their son Jesus, or יהוֹשע. As we saw last week the name translated Jesus actually means in Hebrew Yahweh will save. Joseph would have known that and so the angel elaborates and explains why he must be called Jesus; because He will save His people from their sins.
Here we have the crucible of the gospel message; that Jesus Christ came to save sinners. So let’s break this down and understand what’s being said:
Jesus has a people, and that people is in need of saving. Why do they need saving? They are sinful. From what will they be saved? From their sin.
So who are Jesus’s people? Who does He come to save? In scripture there are a number of passages that address the object of Jesus’s mission.
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
9 And they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
john 6:37-39
37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
So what we see is that scripture teaches that Christ is in a very real sense saviour to the whole world of men; He is God’s love gift of grace to all the world. But we also see that not all the world is saved, but only those who believe. So Jesus’s people are those who believe in Him, He came to save those who will believe in Him from their sins. And who are those who will believe in Christ? Scripture also teaches that this specific people group were ‘given to Jesus’ by the Father, a people who the writer of Ephesians says have been predestined to adoption before the foundation of the world.
4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding,
He predestined us according to the good pleasure of His will we are told. This predestination of His people isn’t in accordance with our will, it isn’t something which happens because God is looking first to see who will choose Him and then He chooses them; no He chooses us first, He loved us first and then we loved Him. You believe in Him because you were chosen to be amoung His people.
48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.
So who are Christ’s people? They are the elect. A word used to address Christians so often by the apostles, and by the church fathers, and by the reformers and puritans, but not so much anymore. It has become a word and a doctrine that the church is ashamed of, well not in this church. I believe in election, I believe in predestination, not because Calvin or Spurgeon taught it, but because the Bible teaches it and I glory in these great truths!
We are told that Jesus will save His people from their sins. Firstly this tells us that we need saving. I know there is a lot of teaching these days about people needing healing, needing restoration, needing breakthrough, but precious little about our need to be saved. Why do we need saving? What is the peril we are facing? It’s our sin. It’s only when we really catch sight of the awful depth of our sinfulness and the purity and holiness of God that we know we need a saviour.
Jesus Christ is our saviour from sin in two ways:
Firstly He saves us from the guilt of our sin. By taking our sins upon Himself at the cross, by shedding His innocent blood for all our sin. He became our substitute, taking on Himself the wrath of God against our sins.
Secondly He saves us from the dominion of sin. When He saves us, He saves us out of our sins, so that we’re not only declared righteous on His account, but we also have the power begin to live a more righteous and holy life through the Holy Spirit. We’re
commanded and empowered to repent and walk away from sins that we used to love.
This is good news for any of you who are tired of living with the weight of sin. Because carrying sin is too heavy a burden for your body and mind to bear. Humanity wasn’t originally created by God to live in sin, so we just don’t have the capacity to live in it without damaging ourselves irreparably. So know this today, Jesus can save you both from the guilt of sin and from the power of sin over your life. Do you want to be free of that habit, that addiction that dogs you, then I have joyful news for you, look to Jesus, believe that He can deliver you from whatever it is that’s got you trapped and He will do it.
How can we trust that He will deliver us? Because though His name is Jesus, God will save, He will also be called Immanuel, which means God with us. He is God, all mighty, all powerful, all love, all peace, all joy, all grace, and He is with us. Jesus came in the flesh 2000 years ago as a guaruntee of the grace and love of God to us, we can take God’s love seriously because of Jesus. And today He is with His people by the Holy Spirit, who has set up camp in our hearts, regenerating us, giving us the power to walk in victory over sin, giving us hope over despair, giving us joy in suffering. We can be joyful today because no matter what happens to us, God is with us, and He isn’t going anywhere, not ever. He will never leave you or forsake you.
Pray.