Matthew 1:18-25 Christmas 22 Part 3
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Celebrating Christmas Happens when we Obey Jesus!
Celebrating Christmas Happens when we Obey Jesus!
I was reminded this week of just how special Joseph is.
We had been under the weather off and on all week.
Zoe started running a fever Thursday and Friday
Crystal had a dr appt Friday which meant i was in charge of keeping the kids.
They are 12 and 13 and I was like man who is going to keep these kids not me right?
And they are my own kids.
I can’t imagine what it was like for Joseph who was asked to give up not a day but his whole life for a child that was not even his.
but he did it!
....
so yeah Joseph is special and he is important and he reminds us just how important a good father is in raising kids that obey the Lord and follow after Him.
this morning I want to share with you that if we are really going to celebrate Christmas it is going to be through our spirit empowered Grace filled obedience to the Lord.
This following after Jesus is very often hard and not easy though is it? We are called on to sacrifice for the sake of his name. WE are called on to take unpopular stands for His Word.
WE are called on to give our time to him.
We are called on to give our hearts to him.
So here’s my question…
Why is it worth it to follow Jesus? Why do we do it? Why do we sacrifice so much in order to Worship Him?
Why do we have Christmas every year where we remember and celebrate His birth?
Why Why why?
Why is he worth our lives, our everything?
The answer is found right here for us in Matthew’s Gospel Chapter 1, Here we see a few different truths about Jesus that show us why He is worth our everything.
I hope this morning you would see that Jesus is worth following. And that then you would give him your all.
I pray that God would change my heart and yours and remind us that Jesus is worthy of Sacrifice, he is worthy of worship he is worthy of praise!
Let’s read our text.
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.
Let’s Pray.
Let’s talk first about The Pregnancy, you could say it was a
1. A Gloriously Difficult Pregnancy
1. A Gloriously Difficult Pregnancy
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.
I know what its like to hear that you are going to be a parent. I know what its like to hear, hunny I’m pregnant. It is not a sound that brings ease into your heart. Those words still ring in my ears from the first time I heard them.
All of a sudden your life changes. You realize hey my life isn’t about me anymore. You realize man now not only is my wife depending on me but so is this little one growing inside her.
IN the best of circumstances it is an unsettling time in the lives of both parents.
But a difficult pregnancy is a whole nother story. Especially this pregnancy.
We learn first that Joseph and Mary were betrothed which was a way of saying here you guys get married but you can’t be together or live together for a year. Gee thanks that sounds like fun right?
But that was the deal. So they had followed the rules and somewhere during this time Joseph gets a call.
Hey man what’s up with that soon to be wife of yours? She’s pregnant?
Joseph is in a pickle
a. Joseph is Righteous
i. He wants to obey the Law
If he goes ahead and marries her it looks like either he is covering up his sin or condoning hers.
ii. But he doesn’t want Mary Shamed
On the other hand if he makes a big deal out of it she will be shamed and an outcast with no one to care for her.
So he is going to do it all quietly apparently hoping that the father of the child would step in and take care of her and the child.
Like I said a difficult pregnancy but not just difficult, GLORIOUS
There’s a second part to this whole event…basically an angel is sent to tell Joseph what has happened.
He explains this birth is supernatural….
He explains that this birth is the result of God’s work and not man’s, that Mary is pregnant not with the child of a man but that her child is the Son of God!
What an amazing revelation.
Of all the doctrines in the Bible this is the one that is the most confusing and embarrassing for Christians.
In fact there are a lot of people even in the church that want to pretend like it wasn’t a for real virgin birth or that this is not a part of the Christmas story that we should talk about a whole lot.
But it is true as true can be.
God wrapped himself in Human flesh according to Phil 2 he took on the form of a bond servant.
The closest I can get to it in my tiny little feeble brain is to compare it to the power of a nuclear bomb being wrapped in a Twinkies.
I know it doesn’t make sense but neither does the incarnation.
Dr. Milikin one of the profs at Mid America said just think of Carnation milk.
You know how it puts extra weight on you. Extra flesh. That is the incarnation God put on flesh and walked among us.
Matthew point us back to
14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
To remind us that this is not a surprise to anyone who knows their bible and the promises God has made.
Mary has never been with a man but she is pregnant just as Isaiah had promised over in Isaiah 7 where he said a virgin will bear a child and his name shall be called Immanuel God with us.
And here we see that God the Holy Spirit uses Matthew to clarify that he was promising that a virgin woman would give birth to God in the Flesh.
So a gloriously difficult pregnancy.
What would you do? Peace out girly I got my whole life in front of me or would you obey the Lord and take this young girl as your wife or would you run for the hills…
Well it all depends on how valuable you saw this child as.
And we see just how valuable He is when we read the description that the Angel gives us which really circles around…
2. A Wonderfully Hopeful Set of Names
2. A Wonderfully Hopeful Set of Names
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).
Jesus and Immanuel.
The amount of trouble we will put up with for something shows the amount of worth we attach to that object.
For example think back to the last 10 years or so of Black Friday.
We used to have countless thousands of people stood in line and fought crowds on Black Friday. Why? Because they attached a high value to whatever it was they were after, whether it be tvs or xbox or whatever.
Or in my family they are probably all sitting out in the woods somewhere freezing to death in search of that trophy buck. Why because to them it is worth it.
But this year we went over to NLR on Saturday and it was empty. And apparently it was no big deal on Black Friday.
You know why? Amazon…people can get the same stuff on Amazon for the same price without getting punched in the face over a dumb tv. It’s all about how valuable something is.
That’s what decides for us how much energy we will put in to see it happen.
Tomorrow you will get up and go to work and put up with stuff that drives you crazy why? Because that pay check is worth it.
You get the idea well the same is true here, the angel is explaining why Joseph’s trouble is worth it.
It has to do with
WHAT THIS CHILD WILL DO AND THEN WHO THIS CHILD IS.
The angel tells Joseph to call him Jesus. Which is the Old Testament name Joshua. God saves.
Jesus Came to Save His People from Their Sins.
I think it’s interesting that people in Israel were looking for a savior to come in and save them from the Romans.
But God sent a savior to save them from themselves.
You may think that all your problems are from the people around you.
The truth is your worst enemy the person you really need to be saved from is not out there it is in here.
We have all sinned and come up short of God’s glory and we deserve his punishment for our sins against Him.
Not to mention just day to day…
Here’s the thing…The reason some of you don’t see JESUS AS WORTH FOLLOWING IS THAT YOU DON’T REALIZE YOUR NEED FOR SALVATION
BUT! you do need Salvation and you need it bad. Jesus is the answer to our problem that we have inherited from Adam the first man who sinned in the garden. Sin and Death!
God in his goodness provided a perfect world to live in. He provided everything we needed but it took us like a minute to mess the whole thing up.
Satan slides up next to Eve and is like man this garden sure is nice but wouldn’t it be nicer with no rules? I mean don’t you get tired of bowing to God all the time? He’s so oppressive telling you that you can’t eat any of this wonderful fruit.
And eve is like naw just that one tree
And Satan is like yeah but that’s the best one, that’s the one THAT makes you like God. He’s holding out on you,
If you eat of the fruit of that tree…
YOU GET PARADISE WITHOUT having to listen to what God tells you to do.
Satan in his lies seems to convince Adam and Eve that…
You get all that you ever wanted plus you get to be in charge so Adam and Eve both dive headlong into sin and disobedience and condemn the entire human race to death.
And we see this playing out throughout history. From then on man carries out his sinful desires apart from God but guess what no paradise. And what’s worse you’re still not the boss you just think you are.
It’s sort of like the Teenager that we once were. I remember thinking ok I got this I’m a man now. And I’d be like no Dad this is the way it’s going to be! And then I was reminded oh yeah, I’m not in charge.
Many of you may have heard or even used the phrase “My House My Rules”
What’s the point? You want to be blessed by what I have you follow my rules.
That’s God’s line. You want to be blessed by God you have to obey God.
The problem is…We are like God I really love your world that you created and the good gifts you have given, but I’m going to use them how I want.
We want to have God’s stuff but do with it what we want to do. We don’t want to bow.
We want to take the life that he blessed us with and use it for our own pleasure. We want to take the food he has given us and abuse it for our own pleasure.
We want to take the tongue he has given us and rip the people in our lives to shreds. We want to take his money and use it on everything but serving him.
We want to have His Word and read it only when we get in a pinch.
You see we’re no different than Adam and Eve. You may think you’re not all that bad this morning but you need to remember that All they did was eat fruit from a tree.
Sin has gotten a lot worse since that day hasn’t?
Which leads me to God’s promise he looks at the serpent, at Satan and says yeah you think you’re so tuff I’m going to send a child of a woman who is going to crush your head. I’m going to destroy your work and power.
And this promise is weaved throughout the entire old testament, Isaiah picks it up in chapter 7 of his book and says a virgin will conceive and he will be called Immanuel.
And here we see that this promise is being fulfilled in Jesus.
He is born of a virgin and He is God and He has come to save us.
He has come to set us free from Satan.
We can’t do that!
How many times have you tried to quit sinning? How’ that working out for you?
And I’m not even talking about the stuff that we all know we’re not supposed to do, I’m talking about the sins that get under your skin that you can’t stand about yourself.
How often have you said that’s the last time I ___________\
You can’t overcome Satan, I don’t care how hard you work at it, he will always rock your world.
Unless you have come to trust on Jesus. He will save you and crush the power of Satan in your life. He will set you free!
And Jesus Can Do what Jesus Does because of…
WHO JESUS IS GOD WITH US IMMANUEL!
Jesus is worth following because Jesus is God with Us!
God in the flesh, (Immanuel)
He sent no ordinary savior
He sent His Only Son
God Himself Came (Immanuel)
I heard someone say, God did not pass salvation off to some lesser being but took care of it himself.
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
How do we respond to this how can we wrap our heads around this?
We can’t it is the greatest paradox in the universe...
Sovereign Grace Music puts out the best Christmas music I’ve ever heard listen to a few of their lyrics that describe the incarnation of Jesus...
The creator is born
The maker became a man
The one who spans the heavens with his hand, with fingers so small
The heart of God in the chest of an infant.
Away in a manger a Lion is born
The darkness will tremble at His mighty roar
The Light of Life descended to the world He made
The ageless Rock of Ages in a manger laid
Behold the Word that bore our flesh
The heart of God inside an infant’s chest
Verse 2
The Infinite incarnate in a virgin’s hands
The radiance of the Father in the Son of Man
Behold the peace that pierced the night
The hope of nations in a baby’s cry
So Jesus is the Son of God, God with Us Who has come to fulfill all the promises God has given. He has come to bless the world and to make us God’s people but the way we find this blessing and this joy is all tied up in… How We Respond to Him
You are faced with
3. An Eternally Significant Decision
3. An Eternally Significant Decision
Jesus has come and demands your obedience.
Basically the case of God becoming a man and asking Joseph and us for that matter to follow him is like the greatest UNDERCOVER BOSS EVER. You guys have seen that show right?
Where the boss disguises himself as a lowly worker to see how his employees act when he’s not around and then reveals himself.
Well those people should pay royalties to Jesus because he did it a long time before they did. Only difference is that he told everybody who he was in fact the angels told Joseph and Mary before he was even born.
Let’s read Joseph’s response one more time so that we see how we should respond.
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.
For Joseph Jesus was worth it because of what the Angel told him, He is going to save his people from their sins and He is God incarnate.
So Joseph does as he is told.
Here’s the catch though, the angel doesn’t say do this and your life is easy you won’t have to pay taxes and everyone will love you
No in fact he is now a social outcast, like Gabriel only told him and Mary about all of this so their family is like ummmmmm
Not only that, he has Herod trying to kill him and his family he has to go live in Egypt!
Mary doesn’t get her story book wedding from what we see happen just nine months later they are all alone with no help basically homeless going to Bethlehem. This was not all that good of a move for these two.
AT least looking at it from a physical perspective.
But Joseph followed anyway because Jesus is worth following.
God said to Mary and Joseph I want to use you to bless the entire world. I want you to submit before me, you will not receive any physical benefits but the eternal spiritual benefits are limitless.
And Joseph said He will Save Us and He is God with us, I’m in. Why? Because Jesus is worth following, he is worth everything.
How about for You?
When is the last time you believed the unbelievable about God?
THIS WAS PRETTY UNBELIEVABLE
When is the last time you dreamed beyond your own ability?
JOSEPH WAS NOT ABLE TO DO THIS APART FROM GOD
You know Jesus could have picked any descendant of David as his earthly daddy but he chose Joseph.
A Carpenter a man that no one else would have seen as all that special or important.
But Joseph this man that worked with his hands building houses and repairing wagon wheels and making yoke for oxen.
That’s who Jesus said that guy right there I want him to raise me and teach me what it means to grow in favor with man and God.
Why? Joseph simply obeyed.
He didn’t question he didn’t complain he just did what he needed to do to be obedient to His God.
Don’t for even a half second this morning think that you are not able to serve the Lord or that you are not important or smart enough to serve Him.
Cause the truth is no one is on their own.
All we have to give our Lord is our obedience.
Give yourself the best gift you can ever receive this Christmas.
Quit putting off serving the Lord and bow obey and follow Him today!
When is the last time you trusted God farther than you can see?
Joseph had no idea what came next but it didn’t matter cause he was following His God.
HE DID NOT KNOW WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN
What is our Response to this Glorious Truth?
Will we respond as Joseph Did in Humble Obedience?
Though it cost us our Reputation
Though it cost us our idea of the perfect life?
Though it cause us to have to move our family?
ARE WE WILLING TO BE INCONVENIENCED? This was not an easy thing they did, their life changed forever.
And the same is true with Jesus. Yeah he will change your plans, but his plans are far greater than yours.
Joseph was going to be just another carpenter but since he obeyed the Lord He became the man whom God entrusted to raise his son and train the greatest carpenter in the history of the universe!
You may be asked to be inconvenienced to serve the Lord. When is the last time you actually went out of your way to serve him.
Now I don’t mean well I’m here anyway I might as well help, no I mean the sort of serve where it actually costs you something to follow him, where you actually have to cancel what you want to do in order to follow him?
Is he worth it?
Some of you this morning have one foot on the platform and the other on the train.
You know that what you are doing is not working but you’re not willing to commit yourself to the only one who can make it work.
I want to tell you that it is time right now, Jesus is the Son of God He is God with Us and He has come to lead you out of captivity to your sins and set you free.
Here’s the catch though, you have to bow. You have to submit to him. Are you willing to bow the knee today, give up control of your life and turn it all over to Him?
Let me tell you its worth it. Let me tell you even if it costs you everything Jesus is worth it
Because He is God
And Because He does Save!
You need salvation, You need God and He offers them both to you right now if you will only take it. Will you right now give Him your allegiance? Will you right now receive Him as Your Lord?