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Welcome & Announcements: Daniel
1. Looking Back Service - This service will include two different longer testimonies, and a sharing time at the closing of the service to celebrate all God has done in this past year.
2. Sunday School - Slated to begin January 9th after a brief training time.
3. Small Groups - Slated to start meeting on January 13th, we will be meeting at Daniel & Lynette's new house (aka Jared & Chrystal's old house).
Call to Worship in Song: Go Tell It On The Mountain, Silent Night
Scripture Reading:
Old Testament Text: Job 9:25-35
New Testament Text: Hebrews 4:14-16
Offering & Pastoral Prayer: Daniel
Adoration
Faithfulness
Peace
Clarity
Confession
Our hearts being troubled by many things
Thanksgiving
Norman & Kaye
Supplication
Bob Mallow
First Baptist Church in Keyser
The Offering
Continue to Worship in Song: What Child Is This?, How Many Kings
Prayer
Today we finish up our series on Advent Through Their Eyes.
We will be examining the incarnation through the eyes of Joseph.
Before we dive in and examine this story from his perspective, I think there is an important question to ask and begin to answer.
Why do our hearts so desperately long for peace?
Think about it for a minute, we see people everywhere longing and hungering for peace.
This is the reason our hearts are so obsessed with taking vacations and weekends.
We desire to have “rest”.
Not only do we see a desire for rest in our everyday lives.
We desire to see it in the world around us.
Example of a Hunger for Peace
Several years ago...
The Cincinnati Post, a large metropolitan daily, in keeping with the spirit of Christmas, presented a front page free of crime and violence, “a crime-less front page.”
By way of explanation the editors told that all news, bad as well as good needs reporting.
That day of days they decided to put all the murders and robberies and the like on the back pages.
Crime, they insisted, has a lawful place in the daily record of human affairs, but it should not be out of proportion.
On Christmas day, they felt, one should not be greeted with the wicked and the lack of good will on the first page.
Instead, they greeted readers with a large banner line: MERRY CHRISTMAS.
Now don’t get me wrong, I understand why this newspaper company decided to do this.
They wanted to show that Christmas is a time of peace.
Why would a paper do this?
It really seems illogical.
Unless, in each of us there is a hunger for rest and peace which is unquenchable.
Like flames that consume straw and stubble, so our hearts burn with a desire for peace.
Example of Adam and Eve in the Garden
But is there a way to find true peace?
Yes.
But we will never find it according to our own ways.
God with Us: The Peace You Have Been Waiting For
We talked about it last week but just to review, betrothal was the process of becoming married in the first century.
It was similar to engagement but significantly more serious and required divorce to be severed.
It was a period of being sexually chaste and not living together, but the commitment was made.
It was during this betrothal process that Joseph discovers that Mary is with child.
Just imagine what this would have done to Joseph to realize his bride was with child?
Gut-wrenching betrayal.
Confusion.
Broken trust.
The text goes on to describe Joseph…
Now Joseph had a couple of choices.
Since he was a righteous man, he couldn’t just go through with the marriage because everyone would assume that he was the cause of the pregnancy.
He would have been looked down on by society at large.
And besides, how could he ever trust Mary again?
Joseph had every right with the law behind him to expose Mary and shame her publicly.
This DID NOT mean that he was forced to divorce her because of the law.
The law allowed for an OPTION of divorce if the spouse did not desire to continue in marriage.
But since he was a righteous man, he didn’t want to expose her publicly.
He had resolved in his mind to divorce her discreetly.
He was a just man and did not want to shame her and cause even greater pain.
Matthew 1:20 (ESV)
20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream,
We have seen it before, and we see again the supernatural origin of the foretelling of Jesus’ birth.
An angel comes to Joseph in a dream to explain why he should take Mary to be his wife.
The angel tells Joseph that this son which Mary is bearing IS NOT an illegitimate child.
The child has been conceived through a miraculous conception of the Holy Spirit.
Joseph is a recipient of amazing news.
This young girl that he was preparing to marry has conceived and it is from the Holy Spirit.
And like the sound of joy from nearby caroling, the words of the angel in this dream hit Joseph.
God with Us: The Peace You Have Been Waiting For
The peace you have been longing for.
The peace you have been hoping for.
God with Us: The Peace of His Presence
It means that Jesus Christ fully God and fully man in one person.
The virgin birth allowed for the bringing together; full deity and full humanity in one person.
Which is why He is called: God with Us.
Hypothetical Situation (Two Un-Biblical Views)
If Jesus would have just floated down out of heaven, and fluttered down to earth and died for our sins.
That would NOT be good news for us.
It WOULD NOT have been good news because He would not have been MADE LIKE US in every way.
If Jesus would merely had two earthly parents and been completely human.
That would NOT be good news for us.
It WOULD NOT have been good news because He would have been exactly like us, and there would be no divine origin.
Truly God and truly Man at the exact same time.
“That seems like an important theological statement, but what does that have to do with me?”
It has EVERYTHING to do with us.
The virgin birth makes it possible for Christ’s true humanity to be without inherited sin.
The purity of Christ means that He does not inherit sin because He is conceived by the Holy Spirit.
If Jesus was born of a “natural” conception, He would be NO different from you and I.
Wayne Grudem
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