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Sunnyside Baptist Church Michael Dirrim, Pastor
Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we do thank You for gathering us here on this day to rejoice in Your truth. And You have revealed Yourself to us through Your Son and by Your Spirit.
You have given us this Word, declaring to us, Your Son, that we may know who You are in Your glory. We may commune with You. We come together on this day, at this time of year, so much evidence of Your goodness.
So much attention given to Your grace. We pray that You would help us today to rejoice. That it would come from our hearts. That You would do a work in us. That we would be the amen here on earth of Your will in heaven.
And true worship would come to pass for Your glory and for our good. We are ever dependent upon You for these mercies. And we ask that You would help us to truly rejoice and celebrate You today. We ask for these mercies, looking only to Your Son, Jesus Christ, the one with whom You are well-pleased.
Amen.
I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Matthew chapter one. Matthew one. We'll be reading verses 18 through 25 this morning. As we continue our survey of this miracle, at the heart of all the miracles, the virgin conception, that Jesus Christ, God of very God, and man of very man, by the power of the Holy Spirit, this second person of the Trinity, by the will of the Father, was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, our Savior and our King.
Then using the title of the Christmas carol, What Child Is This?, the question and then specifying who this child is. What child is this who saves? What child is this who awes? What child is this who leads?
And this morning, what child is this who knows? What child is this who knows? I invite you to stand if you are able as we read God's word. Matthew chapter one, beginning in verse 18. This is the word of the Lord.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly.
But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary, your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.
And she will bring forth a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. So all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord to the prophet saying, behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which is translated God with us.
Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife and did not know her until she had brought forth her firstborn son. And he called His name Jesus.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. It has been said that the tenets of atheism are twofold. First, there is no God. Second, how I hate Him. But there are so few genuine atheists.
God doesn't even believe in atheists. He states that all men truly know Him, even though they suppress that in unrighteousness. More often we find a polite version of skeptic called the agnostic who says, well, there may be a God, but we can't know Him.
And I'm rather irritated with him for not showing himself more plainly. The complaint of the modern man. Alas, no one can know God. The complaint of the modern man, which has led us to the complaint of the postmodern man.
Alas, no one can know me. The two are related. Why is it that some people do not know what a woman is anymore? Because a while back, we started not knowing what a man was. The deceit moves on. Alas, no one can know God, people complain.
Alas, no one can know me. No one can know me and all of my particularities and all of my pains and all of my oppression and all of my uniqueness. No one can ever truly know me. The rage of the postmodern.
And so we have pride parades and rage routines and identity idols. But the one follows from the other. Do we know that these things are not new? That we do not live in some unique time where the needs of man and the problems of man and the sin of man are special?
But that man's nature has not fundamentally changed? That the condition of man addressed in the Scripture is still the same as ever? Do we know that? And do we know that God has sent forth His Son to answer that fallen condition of man?
Completely, sufficiently, satisfyingly forever. Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary thousands of years ago, died upon a cross, was raised the third day, ascended to the right hand of the Father and is reigning there today.
And all that happened so long ago, and yet, He still is the Savior for the world. There is someone who knows God and reveals Him to us. There is someone who knows each one of us better than we know ourselves and reconciles us to God.
There is a mediator. One mediator. And His name is Jesus Christ. And so, this is why the virgin conception is such an essential part to the Gospel. Communion between the Creator and the creature comes by God the Son, who is incarnate by the will of the Father and by the power of the Holy Spirit in the virgin conception.
This morning, we have two very simple truths that we need to remember, because, not just because it's Christmas, but because we're made in God's image. The first truth that Christmas emphasizes to us is that Jesus Christ knows God and reveals Him savingly to mankind.
Secondly, Jesus Christ knows mankind and reconciles us surely to God. It is the truth that I cannot know God independently of my own ability. It is true that I cannot know God comprehensively. It is true that I cannot thoroughly understand and know my fellow man, but all of life is encapsulated in this, knowing what child is this, knowing Christ, knowing Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
So, in Matthew chapter one, we are reminded of who this Jesus Christ is, that He is God. He knows God and reveals Him savingly to mankind. Jesus Christ knows God and as God, He reveals Him to us. He reveals Him to us truly, graciously, and brings us into communion with God.
Matthew chapter one emphasizes that Jesus Christ is the person of God. Listen to verse 18 again. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit, of the Holy Spirit.
We find it again in verse 20. The angel of the Lord says to Joseph, that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. This is a miraculous conception. As the Holy Spirit hovered over the face of the deep in Genesis one, so He hovers over the deep of Mary's womb and life comes forth, the miracle of God.
And what is His name? You shall call His name Jesus. In verse 21, the angel gives instruction to Joseph. She will bring forth a son and you shall call His name Jesus.
Why?
For He will save His people from their sins. Matthew says this was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, that the virgin shall conceive and bear a child and His name shall be called Emmanuel, God with us.
See, the name Jesus or Yeshua means the Lord saves. He saves. How?
Particularly what?
From their sins. Saves them from their sins. Do you remember when the friends brought the paralytic to Jesus? And oh, the press of the crowds. But the faith of the friends.
To take them above the roof.
And to open a gap and to lower Him down before the feet of Jesus of Nazareth that He might be healed. And when Jesus looked upon the faith being displayed there, what does He say to the paralytic? Friend, your sins are forgiven you.
Causing all manner of consternation amongst the religious leaders there present, those with the front seats, and they immediately accused Jesus of Nazareth of blasphemy for claiming to be God. For who can forgive sins but God?
In this they are correct. In this they were 100 accurate. Who can forgive sins except God and God alone? And yet Jesus Christ, Yeshua, Jesus, Yahweh, saves Emmanuel, God with us, forgives sins. And so they were wrong to accuse Him of blasphemy for God He truly is.
Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus Christ knows God and He reveals Him savingly to mankind. The complaint that God has not revealed Himself well enough, thoroughly enough, enough to satisfy me, or that no man can know God, or that there is no God.
But all of this is laid to rest by the fact that God has given us His only begotten Son. Emmanuel, God with us, saving His people from their sins as only God can. Jesus Christ is the person of God and indeed He is the prophet of God.
A little bit later on in the Gospel of Matthew, in Matthew chapter 11, verse 25, at that time Jesus answered and said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the prudent and have revealed them to babes.
Who has hidden the truths of God from the wise and the prudent, from the intelligent and the credentialed, from those who are self-satisfied with their own abilities to perceive and to learn. I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes, even so, Father, for it seemed good in your sight.
It was good in the sight of God to do this. Verse 27, listen to what Jesus Christ says. All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
Do you want to know God? Do you want to know God, your maker, your provider, your sovereign, the one with whom all of us have to do what lies beyond the horizon of our life here on earth? Do you want to know God?
You will know Him only by Jesus Christ. To those whom the Son wills to reveal God. Now listen to how willing and inviting the Son is. Very next verse. Come to Me. He says, come to Me. This to the atheist, this to the agnostic.
You want to know God? Go to Jesus Christ. Go to Jesus of Nazareth. Don't go to your science textbooks. Don't go to your logic textbooks. You go to Jesus of Nazareth. Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
I will give you rest, He says. But then He says, take My yoke upon you and learn from Me. The yoke is the farming implement laid across the necks of two oxen, pinned in to this heavy beam of wood. The metal ring in the middle to be attached to the plow or the wagon.
This is an implement of work, and yet Christ says, come into Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you. Even in inviting us into His labor, He says, this is rest.
Why? Because we're learning from Him. We're learning from Him. He is gentle. He is lowly in heart, and we will find rest for our souls when we're with Jesus. We are made in the image of God. Those made in the image of God are made for the Word of God, made for the life of God, and without Christ, we're cut off from God and our sins, but we come to Christ, we find rest, because we're back home again.
Because we know who God is now when we come to Christ. He says, My yoke is easy, and My burden is light. He does not say, take somebody else's yoke and learn from him. He does not say, take your own yoke and learn yourself.
This is not knowledge that we need. He says, take My yoke upon you and learn from Me. This is a variant on Him saying, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me. So Jesus Christ is the prophet of God.
Do we want to know who God is? Jesus Christ reveals Him to us. And God in His great mercy and compassion and wisdom has given us His Word. And here, everywhere, the Father speaks of the Son by the Spirit.
That's why this is so precious. Unfailingly, inerrantly, everywhere here, the Father speaks of the Son by the Spirit. You want to know God? Then come to know Jesus Christ, revealed to us in His Word. Jesus Christ is also the firstborn of God.
You know, some people have got it in their heads that simply by existing, God owes them when they forget that they owe God for their existence. God doesn't owe us anything. We don't get a seat at the table default.
We have no basis on which to approach God but on our own merits. There's only one way to the Father, and that is by the Son. And God has given us His Son. This is the wonder and joy of Christmas. Galatians 4, verses four through seven says, but when the fullness of time had come, so at the exact right time, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law.
This is what we've been rejoicing in and thinking about from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke this whole season. Now, why did God send forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law? To redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
That's a surprise to the Jews who were living under the law. They thought they were already sons. And here this is saying, no, you need to become sons. You need to become the children of God. We thought we were the children of God.
No, you need to become the children of God. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of the Son into our hearts saying, crying out, Abba, Father. Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son.
And if a son, then an heir of God, an heir of God through Christ. When the fullness of the time had come to fulfill the promises that God had made in previous generations by the prophets, Jesus Christ comes forth as our Redeemer, reconciling us to God.
And by the merits of the Son, by the merits of the Son, and by the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are adopted in to know God as Father, only by Christ. How can I call God my Father, except if I do so by the name of Jesus Christ, my Savior, my elder brother, the firstborn of God?
He has that role. He has that status. If we are in Christ, then we are heirs of God. This is how we relate to God through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the one who knows God and reveals Him savingly to mankind.
When we think about the meaning of the virgin conception that so emphasizes the fullness of His deity and the fullness of His humanity, His sinlessness, His perfections, His faithfulness, we look upon this one, Jesus Christ, as our second Adam, who walks with God in perfect communion with God, and not just in the cool of the day in Genesis chapter two, but Jesus Christ is in perfect communion with the Father at the right hand of God.
And that's why Paul says if we're in Christ, we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. We are called into that joy. Salvation is not a matter of approving of warm sentiments about Jesus and finding that warmth of affection in our hearts, therefore claiming that we have salvation.
Salvation is being reconciled to God. Those made in His image who have transgressed against His glory, fallen short of His glory. We live in death, but we must be brought back into life by Jesus Christ, who died for us and was raised for us.
We are called to eternal life. Eternal life is not escaping your physical woes to live in ethereal clouds forever. That's not eternal life. Jesus prayed in John 17, verse one. He said, Father, the hour has come.
Glorify Your Son that Your Son may also glorify You. Listen to that relationship. As You have given Him authority over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. He will give eternal life.
Do you know what eternal life is?
Verse three.
This is eternal life that they may know You. That's eternal life. That's eternal life. To know God. To know God savingly, graciously in communion with Him. That they may know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
How can we know the Father except by the Son? And so God has sent His Son that we may know God. Now think about the communion. Think about the relationship that Jesus Christ knows God and reveals Him savingly to mankind that we, the creature, may be in communion with our Creator.
Same prayer, John 17, verses 20 and 21. Jesus says, I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they all may be one. As You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
All men will know this, that You are My disciples, by the love that You have for one another. How is it that there can be unity? How is it that there can be communion between man and man when they are in communion with God?
The Maker of man by Jesus Christ. Pride demands to know God on other terms. Terms other than Jesus Christ. It is not enough that God sent His only begotten Son into the world by virgin conception, birth of Mary, to live a righteous life in front of His family and peers and to execute a flawless, faithful, covenant-fulfilling ministry in three and a half years, revealing God in His teaching and His wisdom and His miracles and then dying upon the cross in our place and for our sake and being raised the third day to be ascended to the right hand of the Father where He reigns supreme.
It's not enough, they say. Pride demands, it says, it's not enough that God sent His only begotten Son to die and be raised and to be witnessed as resurrected. It's not enough that God would send His only begotten Son.
I demand to know God on my terms. That's pride. And that pride increasingly demands and more angrily demands and unreasonably demands to know God on terms other than Jesus Christ. Insisting on selfish knowledge hoops through which he or she bids God to jump.
Well, if you can get a God to jump through your knowledge hoop, what kind of a God do you have on your hands? God of your own imagination. An idol not worth your time.
Ahaz.
Oh, untrusting evil king Ahaz had the same kind of rejection. Isaiah chapter seven. Isaiah chapter seven, Ahaz refused God's proof. Didn't want God's sign. Don't give me a sign.
I don't want it.
And God said, he'll give you one anyway. This shall be a sign unto you. A virgin shall be with child. Give birth and you will call his name Emmanuel. There is your sign. Oh, Ahaz, oh, prideful Ahaz who doesn't want anything from God, doesn't want you to prove himself to you.
God has given a sign and his name is Emmanuel, Jesus Christ. Christ is certainly enough. And for those who ask yet for one more sign and one more sign, just one more sign, Jesus said, a wicked and perverse generation asks for signs and not another sign will be given to you except for the sign of Jonah.
And as the son of man will be in the earth and be raised from the dead, just like Jonah was in the big fish. So God has given us enough in Christ, more than enough for us to come to the communion table humbly and independently and confess that it's entirely by God's grace that we know him.
Not because I was intelligent, not that I figured it out. I didn't do a crossword puzzle and figure it out. I didn't go to church 100 Sundays in a row and figure it out. It wasn't because I was born to a privileged family that I figured it out.
It's the entirely the grace of God that we can give him praise for that. Secondly, Jesus Christ knows mankind and reconciles us surely to God. Jesus Christ knows mankind and reconciles us surely to God.
Christ knows us. He knows us. And he says, nobody knows me. Nobody knows what I go through. Nobody can understand me. Nobody can understand my pain. Nobody has been down the path that I've been down. Jesus Christ knows us.
And he is righteous and he is faithful. And he represents us and secures our communion eternally with God. Mark chapter one, it's, you know, Mark, feel sorry for Mark, doesn't get a nativity scene. But he does emphasize the miracle of Christmas.
In verse one, he says, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Well, there's Christmas in a verse. Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And when he begins to tell the story of Jesus after talking about John the Baptist in Mark chapter one, verse nine, it says, it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John and the Jordan immediately coming up from the water.
He saw the heavens parting and the spirit descending upon him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven. You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Behold the humanity, the full humanity of Christ.
Behold the full divinity of Jesus Christ. There it is baptism. Verse 12, immediately the spirit drove him.
Into the wilderness.
And he was there in the wilderness 40 days tempted by Satan and was with the wild beasts and the angels ministered to him. Hebrews two tells us that our savior, Jesus Christ was in all things like us born fully human and he suffered and was tempted so that he knows how to be that perfect high priest for us.
There's not a thing that you go through, not a thing that you've experienced, not a pain you feel in your heart, but that Jesus Christ knows who you are and what you're going through. He is a flawless high priest.
He has experienced all of this suffering and temptation without sin. And if you think that gets him off the hook, think again. How often we are tempted and then we resist and tempted and resist again and it gets worse and worse.
And we finally give into the anger. We finally give into the lust. Jesus Christ never gave in and the temptations only escalated against him, but he always was faithful, always righteous, the lamb of God for us and for our salvation.
Seeing then, Hebrews four says, seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but it was in all points tempted as we are yet without sin.
Let us therefore, please hear this, this Christmas, hear this, therefore, let us come boldly to the throne of grace. You need help this Christmas, don't you? I need help this Christmas. You have sorrows this Christmas.
I have sorrows this Christmas. You have questions that have not been answered. You have needs that have not yet been answered. You need help. You need grace. You need mercy. Come boldly to the throne of Christ.
He is your great high priest. Beware the precious misery of the sacred individual. The postmodern range, no one can know me. Beware the precious misery of the sacred individual. This island of bitterness and loss, unreachable by anyone.
But there is a seismic event called the virgin conception, and the following tsunami of the incarnation has utterly redrawn the map. You either drown in your sorrows or you turn to Jesus Christ, your savior, and you will find in him a flawless high priest, a flawless high priest.
Yes, you can point to people around you. They don't know what I go through. They don't know my pain. They don't know my sorrows, but there is one who does. And God has given him to us. So come to the communion table boldly.
Come in true faith, seeking every mercy for every need from your Lord. From your Lord. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the light that all through him might believe. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light that was the true light, which gives light to every man coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of him and cried out, saying, "'This was he of whom I said, "'He who comes after me is preferred before me, "'for he was before me.
"'And of his fullness we have all received, "'in grace for grace. "'For the law was given through Moses, "'but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. "'No one has seen God at any time. "'The only begotten Son, "'who is in the bosom of the Father, "'he has declared him.'".
Heavenly Father, we give you the praise and the glory today. Thank you for giving us your Son, that we may know you. Help us this Christmas to rejoice in this truth, and to give you the praise that you deserve.
We pray these things in the name of your Son, Jesus.
