Matthew 1:18-25

Good morning rivertree church. Whether you are here downtown or watching online I just want to let you know I am glad you are here.

If you have your Bible go ahead and open to the gospel of Matthew and we will pick up in verse 18 in a moment

Ross lead us through the genelogly last week and did a fantastic Job of saying all those names. Most the time Ross can give us the more difficulty passage so I am grateful he took on this challenge.

Some of the things he highlighted last week which were so special to me where

Matthews Genelogy highlights the dysfuction of Jesus family tree and this dysfuction reminds us if we have a dysfunctional family it’s not imprortant in the kingdom

Matthews Genelogy also highlts how God would bless teh world through a kingdom that would never end

It reminds us God has been in work in his people the whole time. and now he has come to them in person.

We see Jesus truly come at the fullness of time and this morning as we revist the birth of Jesus we see truly the time has come

Maybe something you and I have in common this morning with 1st centrury christians is we can often wonder who we really are and why are we here?

For 1st centruy christians they could have felt forgotten, they could have felt the weight of the Roman government and really even wondered if there life mattered.

And for those of us in this room today or watching online we can fell some of those same things.

We can fell forgotten, We can feel the weight of everything in the world and we can wonder does our life really matter.

What Matthew begins to do in at the beginning of his good news about Jesus is he begins to make sense of our who and why qeuisonts.

he does this by starting to explore and explain who Jesus is and why he had come

and I belive fully as we gze into what matthew wrote over 2000 years ago we realize this

Sermon in a sentence: Who Jesus is and Why he came transforms who we are and why we are

Let’s read Matthew 1:18-25

Matthew 1:18–25 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. 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.

Matthew transistions us from Jesus family tree to who Jesus is and How he came.

It’s a story many of us are familiar with and it’s a story which we most likely thought about as we celberrated Christmas just a few weeks ago.

but it’s a story which must be revisted often. Because this story is true.

It’s one of the most extraoridnary miricales in the whole Bible and probably one of the most remarkable mysterys in the whole universe.

In his book knowing God J. I packer would say this about the Birth of Christ.

“It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie”

Nasa Just launched a new telescope in outerspace and I am really excited about it.

Over the yeras I have loved all the hubble telescople has let us see. All the wonders of this massive universe God has created.

and I am hopeful this new telescope shows us even more. But i’d offer you this. No matter what amazing things we are able to see with this new telescope

nothing this telscope or any telescope will ever show us will be as remarakable as what matthew shows us about the birth of Christ.

That God came in flesh

that He was born of a virgin is increadible

Keller:

Some have argued that the supreme miracle of Christianity is not the resurrection of Christ from the dead but the incarnation. The beginningless, omnipotent Creator of the universe took on a human nature without the loss of his deity, so that Jesus, the son of Joseph of Nazareth, was both fully divine and fully human.

J. I. Packer puts it starkly:

God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child.… The babyhood of the Son of God was a reality. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the Incarnation.2

and when people struggle to belive in the virgin birth it’s not because of lack of evidence. It’s because people don’t actuaully bleive God can or does miricales.

but when you believe God entered our world in the way Jesus Christ entered it everything else the Bible claims about God begins to make sense

The other beautful things about this passage is it really reminds us the Father Loves us enough to send his son,

and the son shares both our nature and Gods.

This son has come to do more then defeat Rom. He has come to rescue his people from thier sins. He has come to his people in the middle of there mess.

This is a miricale!

One we should ponder, dwell on and think of often

If you are new to church know this Chrisitinaity is not good advice about morals. If that was the case Jesus could have come in a different way.

No christianity is good news about God and what he has done for us!

We are told in the follwoing verse how this happened.

Mary had been engaged to Joseph. In this day and age it was as serious as marraige yet they had not been intimate yet.

Matthews Gospel is profound in his telling of the birth of Jesus. there is no nativty. He doesn’t mention Mary’s labor and delivery. insteads he gives us other details.

In some ways Lukes gospel shows us the birht of Christ thorugh Marys eyes

Matthews Gospel shows us the birth of Christ thorugh Joseph’s eyes

In church tradition he is refered to as quiet Joseph becasue he never really speaks. The gospels actually never report him uttering a single word.

Seeing this through Josephs eyes are pretty amazing. We don’t know what he felt but we can probably imagine. As tough as a spot as Mary was in, Pregnant without beign with a man. Joseph was also in a tough spot.

He could have been embarrsed or evern felt dupped

Here he finds out the love of his life is pregnant and it’s not his child. I am sure he was puzzled and felt pressure from the outside.

His friends probably said it was either you or she’s been unfaithful and if shes been unfaithful then you must divorce her.

but in the midst of his silence we began to see the sweetness of obiendence. He has a dream. He is vistied by an angel. He is told waht to do and when he awoke from his sleep no longer was he goign to divocrce mary.

No matter what guilt or shame was put on joseph he awoke from his dream with a new confidence and he married her. And protected her purity in every way

and before we move on to the other amazing things this text can teach us let us not miss how sweet obidence really is.

In josephs obiendce we are told he is the one who gets to name Jesus.

He adopts Jesus into his family

and Jesus is called the son of daivd.....Josephs obeidnce is part of God fullfilling his word to his people.

This is so profound

There it is! You can also put a “Wow!” next to “son of David.” Did you know that other than this reference only Jesus in all the Gospels is called “Son of David”? Which means what? It means that Joseph has royal blood. It means that this humble carpenter (13:55) is from “the house of David” (Luke 1:27)

and maybe something we can learn from Josephs obedience is sometimes it is enough to live a quite life, to not say much but to simply trust and obey

and in our obedeince we can be a part of Gods work in the world and see God accomplish more in our lives then we could ever ask or imagine

It is how anyone must come to Christ. You have to drop your codiitions, your questions, your bargining with God and obey him.

Obedicne is not....God I will obey you if. True obedince takes all “if” condtions off and trust God

If you really want Jesus with you do what Joseph does

give up self determintaiton and choose self denial

give up self rightousness and choose his rightouness

it’s whtat Joseph was called to do and it’s what we are called to do.

DA Carson says this, “Although God sometimes works through spectacular and supernatural means, he commonly works through ordinary people who take responsibility for themselves and seek and act faithful even in difficult circumstances.”

and Josephs part in the story gives us hope for our part in Gods story

It truly is the downward mobility of the gospel story.

Josephs obedeince leads both the righoutness of God and Gods compassion in tact

Joseph expierence a real divine grace as he is brought into this most profound myster of the incarnation.

as we transition from Joseph we see something else amazing in this text.

and then matthewe tells us something astounding. She was foudn to be with a child from the Holy Spirit. In all of ancient liturete there was not a story like this

Myths had been told throughout time of a god or ruler impregnating someone but it was always in a crude or wicked way

Matthews story highlights the purity of Jesus birth

The Holy Spirit made the preexistent second person of the Trinity into a human being.

The Spirit genesis-ed Jesus!

It was the work of the Holy Spirit to genesis Jesus. Just as the Spirit “was hovering over the face of the waters” at creation (Genesis 1:2), so here for our salvation the Spirit “overshadowed” Mary’s womb (Luke 1:35), making God’s Son into one of us—with bones and brains and blood, with lungs and lips and lymph nodes, with head and heart and hands.

Jesus has always been God but now prexistent Jesus is taken on Human flesh

The imagery, then, in the first book of the New Testament takes us all the way back to the first book of the Old Testament, for in Genesis, the Spirit brings life to men.

Scripture opens with the Spirit giving life to all of creation: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters” (Gen 1:1–2; emphasis added). Then the Lord breathes life into Adam, the first man (Gen 2:7). Now in Matthew, the Spirit gives life to the Messiah

What an amazing thought!

The God who creates in Genesis 1 is re-creating and redeeming in Matthew 1. He is making a way, through the virgin birth of Christ, for humanity to be rescued from sin and reconciled to God. Just consider how glorious it is that God is the Creator and Re-Creator of all things:

• He takes the hurts in our lives, and He turns them into joy.

• He takes the suffering in our lives, and He turns them into satisfaction.

• He takes the rebellion in our lives, and He clothes us in His righteousness.

• He takes the sin in our lives, and He brings salvation.

And this doesn’t just happen to let us know God exisit. It happened to bring God near to us. SO he can be with us and we with him.

Jesus being born of a woman, like any other child crying and cooing reminds us of his humanity

He is Born like us.

When God showed up in Jesus Christ, he was not a pillar of fire, not a tornado, but a baby. There is nothing like a baby. Even young children have their own agenda and can run from you. But the little babies can be picked up, hugged, kissed, and they’re open to it, they cling to you. Why would God come this time in the form of a baby, rather than a firestorm or whirlwind? Because this time he has come not to bring judgment but to bear it, to pay the penalty for our sins, to take away the barrier between humanity and God, so we can be together.

He possess the full range of Human chracteristics.

He is fully human in his body

He is fully human mentally

Emotionally

and this allows him to fully be able to identify with us.

he is familiar with your suffering. That’s what is so comforting in affirm the truth of matthew 1. Jesus was born of a woman, as the son of man

and as we affirm his humity we also are invited to affirm his divinity

The son of God is fully God

We will see this as we continue to walk thorugh matthrew toghether but here are some things you will notice. He power over diseases. As we walk thorugh matthew we will see Jesus simply speaking healing into reality.

He cleanse leapers, gives sight to the blind, causes the lame to walk all by speaking them into reality.

Only God can do this

We will also see his command over nature. In matthew 8 we will see him just speak to the storm and the storm stops.

His power over nature is so marvoulous even his disciples say “what kind of man is this”

He also has authority over sin. He is able to defeat sin, and forgive sin becasue he is divine

and the last way matthew will show us Jesus divinity is he has control over death. He doesn’t just bring others to life. This would be a miricale in itself

he also raises Himself from the dead.

and as amazing as those claims are this is what matthew lays out in his gospel. Jesus is fully human able to idenitfy with us and as fully God he is able to idenitfy with God

Huminitty shows his willingness/empathy/sym[poth

divinity/ shows he is ABLE

Scripture shows us this

• He was born a baby and He sustains the universe.

• He was 30 years old and He exists eternally.

• He was tired and omnipotent.

• He died and He conquered death.

• He has returned to heaven and He is present with us.

when you put this together you reazile the incarnation this idea of God with us the doctirne of the fully huminity and diety of Christ is the most extraodinary miricales in the whole Bible!

And if this miracle is true, then everything else in this Gospel account makes total sense. After all, is it strange to see Jesus walking on the water if He’s the God who created the very water He’s walking on? Is it strange to see Him feeding 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish if He’s the One who created their stomachs? Furthermore, if what Scripture says is true, is it even strange to see Jesus rise from the dead?

So who is this Jesus Matthew tells us about.

He is Son of God Son of Man

He is Son of David

He is the promised Messiah

he is the Coming King

He is fully human

Keller Hidden Christmas

“And if he is not who he said he is, then he is someone to hate or run away from. But no other response makes any sense. Either he is God or he isn’t—so he’s absolutely crazy or infinitely wonderful. The modern world, however, is filled with people who say they believe in Jesus, they say they understand who he is, but it hasn’t revolutionized their lives. There has been no crisis and lasting change. The only way to explain this is that, contrary to what they claim, they haven’t really grasped the meaning that he is “God with us.”

and

and if this is who he is

Why did he come?

V 21 clues us in

“He will save the people from their sins”

In other words he came to rescue the lost.

As we talked about in our Christmas series Jesus came to defeat sin, death and condemnation once and for all.

and he can only do this if he is God. It gives me great hope this morning. Because if Jesus is God it means this world isn’t all there is.

There is life after death.

There is a love from God which we will expierence for all of eternity. There is a day all evil and suffering will come to an end.

IN other words there is HOPE!

If Jesus is fully God and Fully human

If Jesus came to rescue us

It helps us understand who we are and why we are

We are people who need forgivness form our sins.

We are people who need rescue

We are people who need help

We are people who must be willing to say I have failed, I don’t love God with all that I am but I need God.

and then to look to Jesus to save us. To be reminded in Jesus we see God loving us with all his heart, soul, strenght and mind. He shows us this on the cross.

He did it voluntarily, willingly, and lovingly. No one forced him. It wasn’t just a duty. He faced unimaginable pain and death out of love for you

To see the willingness of Jesus to save and ask him to do so.

And when he saves us the who changes. No longer is our idenity sinner it’s saint

no longer is it slave it’s free

no longer are we dead in our sins but we are alive in Christ

No longer are we living in the kingdom of darkness but we have been transfered to the kingdom of light

The willingness to ask Jesus to save us changes everything about us.

It chagnes our why

Before Jesus saved me I lived for myself. My name, My status, my poplurity, my influnce but once I cam to christ The holy spirit(began/genesied) something in my that made my life about something other then myself.

It made my life about loving God with all my heart, soul, mind and strenght and loving others the way God does. TO join God in his rescue mission

no longer was I worried about all the other stuff. I realized I had been purchased by the prescious blood of Jesus and my life had a greater purpose then just livng for me. And as paul writes in Philippians 1:6

Philippians 1:6 ESV

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

He genesied a good work in me. The same spirit invovled in the creation of the world and the conception of Jesus wants to conintue to do a good work in me.

He wants to do it in you also. If you are in Christ

will you gaze once again at the beauty of Chrsit and ask the spirit to conitnue to work in you?

What might the spirit be genesing in you this morning. What might the Spirit what to birth in you today?

Let’s pray

Father in heaven thank you for the great love which with you have loved us. Thank you for sending Jesus. Thank you for loving us enough to do so. Jesus thank you for coming and being willing to be like us. To take on a human body in the form of a baby to idenitfy with us.

I pray this morning there would be a strong sense of your nearness to yoru people today

I pray you would take the hurts in this room an dturn them into joy

I pray you would take the suffering in this room and use them to make us more like Jesus

I pray you would take our rebellion and clothe us with rightouness

I pray you would take our sins and bring yoru salvaiton

Thank for your willingness to do this.

and as grateful I am for your willingness I am also grateful becasue you are fully God you have the authority to do this

Raise the dead to life this morning

Bring forgivness in this Room

bring salvaiton and healing

Spirit I pray you would geneis some things in our lives this morning. That you would birth your dreams, desires and hopes for our life once again. I ask and trust you to do this.

I ask all this in the name of Jesus, Amen