FBC Daily Devotional – December 23, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Thursday morning to you. Two days until Christmas. Are you looking forward to that Christmas Day and celebrating the birth of our

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Savior on Saturday? Hopefully with some family and maybe some friends.

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How are you gonna do it? I do trust that you'll keep in mind just some of these things we've been looking at this week in the genealogy of Jesus.

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Looking at the women whose names are given in that genealogy that expressed to us the miracle of God's mercy.

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We see that in Tamar, the miracle of God's grace as expressed in the life of Rahab, the miracle of God's sovereignty in the life of Ruth.

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And today I want us to look at the miracle of God's power evident in the life of Mary.

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In the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1, verse 16 is really interesting in a couple of ways.

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One, of course, is the fact that a woman is mentioned. There's only three other times in the whole genealogy where a woman's name is given.

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But what's really significant is the exact phrasing of this verse.

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In all of the other verses you read things like, well, just look at the previous verses.

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In verse 14, Azor begat Zadok. Zadok begat Achim. These are the names of men.

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Achim begat his son Eliad. Eliad begat Eleazar. Eleazar begat

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Mathan. Mathan begat Jacob. Jacob, in verse 16, Jacob begat

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Joseph. But then there is some very clear indication of the miracle of the virgin birth.

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When it goes on to say, Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom, in the feminine, speaking of Mary, of Mary was born

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Jesus who is called Christ. You see the departure from the norm in the routine of that genealogical list?

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It wasn't Joseph who begat Jesus. It was Joseph who is the husband of Mary.

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It is Mary who begat Jesus who is called the Messiah.

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This woman Mary represents the miracle of God's power. Look at the condition that she finds herself in.

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Verse 18 tells us that the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. After his mother

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Mary was betrothed to Jesus, the closest thing we have to this betrothal in our culture is the engagement period, but it's more significant.

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The betrothal was more significant than an engagement. A couple gets engaged and it's a commitment to get married, but it's not legally binding.

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At any time, one or the other party can take the ring off the finger and say, I don't want to go through with this and there's no problem.

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I mean, I wouldn't say there's no problem, but there's no legal ramifications of it.

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It's not true with betrothal in the first century Israel. This was a legal matter where these two parties entered into a covenant with one another.

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They were betrothed in the eyes of society and the law.

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So this was a much more significant commitment and covenant.

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They were as good as married without having consummated the marriage that comes at the wedding feast.

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So she was engaged, I guess is the best way to put that for our understanding. This is her condition.

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She's engaged but unmarried because the passage goes on to say she was betrothed to Jesus before they came together and that's referencing the fact that in the

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Jewish wedding process, marriage process, a couple would become, would be betrothed, legally bound to one another and then at some point after the betrothal date, there would be a marriage celebration and a marriage feast and a marriage, a day of consummating the marriage.

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Oftentimes those marriage feasts would last a week, sometimes more if the people were wealthy and you know, they'd celebrate the wedding and then the last day of the marriage and that night the husband would take the wife to his home and the marriage was then consummated and they would come together.

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All right, so this was before they came together. This is her condition. She's engaged, unmarried, but expecting.

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The verse ends, verse 18 says, before they came together she was found with child.

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She was found with child. She is expecting a child. That brought up her dilemma and the dilemma is brought out in verse 19 because her husband,

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Joseph, isn't convinced. It says, Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly.

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He was trying to figure out, how can I divorce her without creating a public scandal?

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You see, Joseph heard the story. Mary had told Joseph what happened, how the angel

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Gabriel came to her and told her she was going to have a baby and Mary was befuddled because she didn't know how that was gonna happen and the angel explained to her that she was gonna have this baby by the

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Holy Spirit and no man was going to be involved in it at all and so on and so forth and she comes back and tells

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Joseph this fantastic story and Joseph is like, okay,

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I don't want to be crude about this, but I mean you put yourself in Joseph's position.

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It would be, the only way I can kind of think about how this much must have hit him would be like a man returning from basic training in the military.

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He goes off to, you know, three months of basic training and he comes back and for a visit at home and his wife tells him that she's pregnant for a month and he says he's obviously going to be upset, angry, throw things around perhaps, depending on how enraged he gets over this and says how did this happen?

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And she tells him the story like Mary told Joseph. Is he gonna believe her?

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No. Well, Joseph didn't believe this. He couldn't wrap his head around this and who could?

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I mean, let's be frank. Who could really wrap their head around this? And he's going to, he's just going to end this thing.

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He's going to write her a bill of divorcement and send her away. That's how legal the betrothal was.

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To break the betrothal, he had to legally divorce her. That's what he was planning to do.

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Well, that brings in the miracle of God's power and God's power is seen in his intervening in this whole situation.

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He intervened, of course, by planting the seed verse 16, as I indicated, shows us that Jesus was born of Mary, not of Joseph.

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Jesus is the son of Mary. He's not the son of Joseph. Luke indicates that too in the genealogy that Luke has.

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Luke says that that Joseph was thought to be the father of Jesus, but no, he wasn't.

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Jesus was the son of Mary and not of Joseph. Why? Because God intervened.

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And that intervention is indicated in verse 18, where it says she was found with child of the

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Holy Spirit. So exactly what the angel Gabriel told

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Mary in Luke's gospel, that she would be expecting this child by the work of the

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Holy Spirit, it would be conceived by the Holy Spirit, is actually what took place.

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It is the miraculous power of God that brought about this baby, this fully human divine baby in the womb of a woman.

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So he intervened powerfully in the very conception and birth of Jesus.

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But he intervened powerfully in another way. And that is in the work that God did to convince

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Joseph of the truth of what Mary told him. This is brought out in verses 20 and 21.

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While Joseph is mulling over, how can I divorce this woman so that it's not a big public scandal?

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Well, he thought about these things. An angel of the Lord came to him and said to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take

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Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.

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The angel confirms exactly what Mary told Joseph. And she shall bring forth a son, the angel goes on to say, and you shall call his name

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Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. So God in his grace and by his power sends this angelic messenger to Joseph and in his power convinces

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Joseph in his heart as well as his mind. And how do we know this?

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Because of what we read in verse 24. Joseph then being aroused from sleep, he did exactly what the angel commanded him and took to him his wife and he did not know her until she had brought forth her firstborn son.

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And Joseph called the child's name Jesus. God in his power had broken through the the heart and mind of Joseph and convinced him of the truthfulness of this story, that Jesus, this child in Mary's womb was indeed was indeed the the fruit of the

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Holy Spirit's miraculous conception. The power of God convinces the mind of the power of God that has taken place in the womb of the woman.

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Mary represents the miracle of God's power and what a power it is.

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And so in a couple of days, we're going to celebrate the virgin birth of Jesus, the

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Messiah. What a celebration it should be. Thank you, Father, for this clear display of your miraculous power, your incredible, awesome, almighty, miraculous power.

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We praise you and we thank you today for that power in bringing forth

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Jesus, our Savior. Bless these thoughts, I pray to our hearts in Jesus' name.

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Amen. All right, we'll have a good rest of your Thursday. I trust God will bless you in it.

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You'll get done with some of those Christmas celebration preparations and look forward to Christmas Eve tomorrow.