The Birth of the King

Well, last week as we ended our look at the first 17 verses of the

Gospel of Matthew, we ended with a question that is forced upon us through this

Gospel. And that question was that if God kept

His promise through all of these generations, through all of these trials, through all of these difficulties, that He kept

His promise to give us not only an eternal King, but an eternal

King who saves, what will we do with Him now?

So as we worked through those 17 verses, we saw that Christ was not an interruption to the story of Israel.

Christ was not a change in a new direction.

One of the things that we see oftentimes, or hear oftentimes in so many places, and unfortunately in so many churches today, is that there is this disconnect between the

Old Testament and the New Testament, and the God of the Old Testament is not the God of the New Testament, and that we're dealing with two separate beings, and that couldn't be further from the truth of what the

Word proclaims. Because what we see in Christ is not a new thing, it is the fulfillment of the thing.

It is what God has been moving humanity towards from creation.

We saw Christ as the promised seed of Abraham. We saw Him as the promised son of David, the

King who would, the rightful heir to the throne, the one whose kingdom truly would have no end.

We saw in, as we walked through these people, that in famine, in feast, in righteousness, in rebellion, through glory, through exile, through obscurity, through all of these things,

God was faithful to sustain this lineage of Christ, this royal line, because God is faithful to His covenant promises.

And so now, as we come to the last set of verses in chapter 1, verses 18 through 25, we see that as Matthew writes this gospel, he presses further into this truth.

See, it's one thing, right, to prove that a king has a right to rule.

We see demonstrated for us in the first 17 verses that Christ had a rightful claim to the throne of David.

We're actually going to even elaborate that on a little bit more this morning. But the other thing that we're going to see is that not only does

Christ have the right to reign, He also has the right to truly deliver

His people. You see, lineage, birthright, bloodline can't save you.

We kind of touched on that a little bit last week. It's true today just as much as it was true then.

You aren't saved by what your parents did or your grandparents did or your great -grandparents did.

I'm often reminded of this. I have a rich history in this area. One of the things that I enjoy doing is learning about that history of my family.

And there's a church not too many miles from here that my family was an integral part of starting.

That doesn't give me the right to enter the kingdom of God because my family helped start a church 200 plus years ago.

Bloodline doesn't save. A king who reigns by blood alone is not necessarily able just to do that thing.

His royal bloodline wasn't necessarily the thing that could forgive the sin.

The legal right to hold that throne doesn't reconcile sinners to God. David was a king.

David could not reconcile sinners to God. Solomon was a king.

Solomon could not reconcile sinners to God. And so we need something different.

A promised king who cannot deliver his people from their greatest enemy, who cannot save, is not a savior.

So just the pronouncement of him being a king is not enough.

So what we see is Matthew moving now from the royal bloodline, the royal genealogy, into the nativity, into the royal mission, the goal of the king, the purpose of the king coming.

The genealogy shouted to us that he was that king who would reign eternally. The nativity, the proclamation of Scripture, the angel sent to both

Mary and Joseph, now declares not only is he the king, he is also the one who will save his people from their sins.

That he is literally not just a ruler, but a redeemer.

And not just a kinsman redeemer as we go back and see in the book of Ruth and in the

Old Testament. He is the ultimate redeemer because he is

Emmanuel. He is God with us.

And so with that in mind, if you will take out your copy, if you have not already done so, of God's word.

Make your way to the book of Matthew. We'll, as I mentioned briefly, be in the first chapter beginning in the 18th verse and reading through the 25th.

As we prepare to read, please stand in reverence for the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, sufficient, complete, and certain word.

Matthew's gospel beginning in the 18th verse of the first chapter and following reads thusly.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When his mother

Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the

Holy Spirit. And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.

But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the

Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take

Mary as your wife. For the one who has been conceived in her is of the

Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name

Jesus. For he will save his people from their sins.

Now all of these things took place in order that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled saying,

Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son and they shall call his name

Emmanuel. Which translated means God with us.

And Joseph got up from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took

Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son and he called his name

Jesus. Most gracious and holy

Father, Lord, we thank you for the reading of your word this morning.

We thank you for the clear testimony that it provides to us regarding the coming of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we praise you that in the fullness of time you sent forth your son conceived by the

Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary to accomplish the salvation that we have no way of securing for ourselves.

Father, we rejoice that you have not remained distant from us in our sin, but God that you have drawn near to us in Christ.

Now as we turn to the preaching of your word, we confess our need for your grace.

Father, we ask that you open our eyes to understand the truths before us, that our hearts are softened where they are hard, that we are convicted where we are complacent, and that we are encouraged in those places where we are weary.

It would help us to see clearly that our greatest need is not from relief of the circumstances of this world, but redemption from sin.

Grant us renewed and strengthened faith to believe that the one who came to save us is mighty to save.

Lord, we ask now that you prepare our hearts to receive your truth in humility and in repentance.

May Christ be exalted, may your people be strengthened, and your name be glorified.

We ask all of these things in the blessed name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and our

King. Amen. You may be seated. For anyone familiar with the

Gospel of Luke's account of the birth of our Lord and Savior, it becomes immediately apparent reading

Matthew's account that there is a different approach and focus.

As you may recall in Luke's Gospel, we begin with Mary.

The pronouncement of the birth is centered around Mary. The actions are centered around Mary.

The storyline is centered around Mary until Christ is born.

In Matthew's Gospel, you may have noticed that things are centered around Joseph.

Now as we've talked about Matthew's Gospel already, we've repeated this a couple of times. It bears repeating again.

You probably will hear it more after this week. But Matthew is a Jew who is writing to Jews, proclaiming the

King of the Jews. And so in doing that, he needs to follow certain protocols to help ensure that the

Jews understand what he is proclaiming and professing.

And so part of the reason that Matthew focuses in on Joseph is because for the

Jewish person hearing this, the importance of the lineage coming through the

Father was paramount. And so as we've walked up to this, this is why the genealogy is of Joseph.

This is why when Matthew begins the account of the birth of Christ, he begins with Joseph.

You notice he doesn't belabor the point that Mary is a virgin. Matthew believes and understands this to be understood.

This wasn't a question. It wasn't 2025 where we question everything. They believed what they had been taught, what had been seen, what had been heard.

There are references to it, but that's all they are is merely references.

And those references are backwards in Scripture to give us evidence. The other thing that you would notice about Matthew's gospel is that when he arrives at the birth itself, the time leading up to the birth, he's not joyous.

There's no celebration. There's no fanfare. There's no pronouncement of angels proclaiming good news to shepherds in the hillside.

Matthew actually begins where most people would never want to begin. Much like he did through his genealogy,

Matthew begins in a place of scandal. Now what's interesting is we often don't take enough time to understand

Joseph's point of view and his circumstances here. One of the interesting things that I think that,

I know I did a message several years ago about this, but I had never thought about it, is the way in which these two lives, both

Mary and Joseph, were completely interrupted, were completely changed, were turned on their head.

And when I look at that and I think about how we react to just mild inconveniences in our day when something doesn't go as planned,

I marvel at the strength of the character of both Mary and Joseph.

See, we don't know a lot about Joseph, but we do know some things from this passage.

And so it begins in the midst of scandal. We know that there is a tension here.

Mary's pregnant. Joseph is not the father. And in that culture, it wasn't a situation like today where it may be awkward, it may lead to a little bit of conversation behind someone's back.

You understand that this was catastrophic news. Because if you go back and you study the

Old Testament law, literally what should have happened at this point was

Joseph proclaiming her before the elders, and then because she had been a virgin and was violated and did not report, did not cry out, would have been considered complicit, she would have met her death at the hands of stoning.

And so we have this catastrophic thing that's happening. The other thing that we have to make sure that we do here is not understand an engagement in that time frame like an engagement in today's time frame.

People today can get engaged and disengaged just as fast or unengaged, whatever the word might be, but they can do it with no big deal.

It's not a major issue. In that day and time, to be betrothed to someone, to be engaged to someone, you were considered married.

Notice it says her husband, Joseph, and Joseph her husband.

The betrothal period was approximately one year before the actual marriage feast celebration, which was about a week long, would take place.

And during that time, the bride lived with her family, the groom lived with his family, the groom would be busy preparing their home, their residence, but they were considered legally bonded.

And in order to be separated, the man, because the woman couldn't do it in that situation, the man had to submit to put her up for or away for divorce.

Now there were some reasons that that existed for, but not a lot.

This issue, however, created not just the opportunity for a divorce, but also called into question the sexual purity of Mary.

And so Joseph, you'll notice by the description, a righteous man, wanted to do what he considered to be right and not disgrace

Mary. And so his ultimate goal was to simply separate her. And the reasoning there is because not only would it affect her, it would also affect him, but it would bring shame, accusation, public resentment, ultimately under the law, death.

And so he decided, he made this decision or was moving in this direction to show mercy.

You know the combination there. Joseph was a righteous man who was preparing to show mercy.

It wasn't that Joseph was indifferent to holiness because he was identified as a righteous man.

He would have understood holiness. He would have understood the call to be holy. Yet he also understood that even though as a righteous man, he's not a cruel man.

He doesn't pretend indifference to sin. He doesn't pretend that it is insignificant.

But he also doesn't delight in exposing Mary to the world and generating this animosity towards her.

He intends to do what is lawful to end the betrothal while also protecting her and doing it in the quietest, gentlest method that he can.

If we're taking notes of lessons that we can learn from biblical characters, this is a lesson that can be learned in the

Christian life. That we can be righteous. That we can live in a way that God demands us to live.

We can call others to live in a way that God demands us to do. But not just act in such a way that is rash or quick to judgment.

But at the same time, we cannot ignore the fact that the sin exists.

And so Joseph sought to do what he thought was right.

But I want you to notice though. I want you to notice that Matthew is showing us something about the world in which the king entered.

He entered in a situation that would have been considered reproach.

He entered into a world that was not perfect. He entered into a place that there was a shadow already lingering.

We see in the book of Luke that Jesus is born in a manger.

One of the lowest places, the feed trough of an animal. But even before we get to that point, we see

Joseph in a situation that would have cast shadow.

Because you see, even if Joseph didn't put her away for divorce, people in that day were not ignorant.

They knew about how long a woman would carry a child. They knew about how things of that nature work.

Maybe not as in depth as we do today. But enough that the mere birth of the child would have created circumstance and questions and situations.

And so this shadow, this pall was already cast over this situation.

Even his coming bears a scent of his suffering to come.

And so Joseph, finding his life turned upside down, dealing now with the uninspected, the troubling, the confusing thing that was going on, because what's the first thing we ask when we think bad things have happened to good people?

How could a good God let this happen? Joseph's a righteous man.

The question goes through his mind, I'm sure. But in the midst of all of that, what we see looking here, and what

Joseph will ultimately find out is that although it is unexpected, and although it is unplanned, and although it is troubling, and although it is confusing to him, it is not to God.

That God has a plan. That God has been working.

That God has come to the place. That history has moved to the place where the fullness of time has come, and the plan proceeds.

And so Joseph receives a visit from a messenger. Now you notice a couple of things about this visit.

First of all, it's the address in which the angel addresses Joseph. Joseph is a carpenter.

If you weren't aware of that, now you are. If you weren't aware of that prior to me mentioning it, maybe go home and read your

Bible this week. He was not standing in line waiting to be proclaimed king of Israel.

He had a bloodline. He had a birthright.

But he was in a lowly of low places. But yet the angel addresses him as son of David.

You see, that makes Joseph not just a private man with a private problem. What it makes him is a link in the covenantal chain.

What it makes him is the person through whom

God is preparing to fulfill what he promised to David.

And because of that, Joseph has a role to play. And so the angel delivers the message, do not fear.

Now I can imagine that there was some fear in Joseph.

Think back through your week, this past week. Did you have anything unexpected come up?

When the unexpected arrived, were there any moments of fear, of uncertainty, of confusion?

Now understand that your situation, your little deal, wasn't nearly as massive as what

Joseph was fixing to go through. So the words of comfort from the messenger of the

Lord, do not be afraid, would have had to mean a great deal.

Now I'm just going to tell you, if I go home today and an angel appears to me and the first thing he says is do not be afraid,

I'm hoping there's a lot of power behind that to actually eliminate the fear because I'm not sure it's going to move. But God is working.

God is moving. So he says to Joseph, don't fear.

Not, Joseph you're being stupid because I've shown up and you're terrified.

But Joseph, things are fixing to get real. You've got a real situation happening.

That situation's not going away. I'm here to deliver a message to you from God.

And your fear now needs to give way to his plan and his revelation because Joseph is fixing to get a revelation.

The angel said to Joseph, do not be afraid. Why? For that which has been conceived in her is of the

Holy Spirit. Can you imagine those words? Let me see if I can put some of this into a little bit of perspective for you.

The prophecy that we read a little earlier, you may recall, was approximately 700 years before the birth of Christ.

From the lips of the prophet Isaiah. One of the most highly revered prophets in Jewish history.

For 400 years, there has been silence from heaven.

And now, all of a sudden, an angel appears to Joseph, a man who scripture describes as righteous, which also means that as a

Jewish man who is righteous, he would have had to understand his responsibilities regarding the law.

He would have had to understand the teachings that are given, at least to some extent, in scripture, in the

Old Testament, in the law and the prophets, and then to be told that what has been conceived is of the

Holy Spirit. Now, this is a place where we need to tread carefully.

There is error in teaching that exists around this, because scripture isn't clear.

It doesn't give us the mechanics of the situation. It doesn't go into all of this.

It's a mystery on how exactly this moved. But for us to read anything into this, to add to what scripture has given us is wrong, and it's in error.

But trust me, brothers and sisters, when I say that there are churches today who proclaim to be churches, who proclaim to be

Christian churches, who would argue with you. What we do see is a miracle.

We see a virgin who has a child conceived of the

Holy Spirit. We see God moving. Now, the other thing that we have to take care with here is the idea that this was the beginning of Jesus.

This was not Jesus' beginning. It was not as if Jesus didn't exist, and now all of a sudden he does.

This is the beginning of Christ as a human, his human life, his creaturely life, but God the

Son is not a creature. He is not a created being.

This is not something that happened and all of a sudden Jesus started.

So we get the idea, we get the teaching, that the God of the right side of the Bible is different from the

God of the left side of the Bible. And if you kind of press into that, what you'll find is the God of the left side of the Bible, he's a mean old man.

The God of the right side of the Bible is Jesus. He's really nice, and he loves everybody, and he just forgives everything you do, and so you can be what you want to be, how you want to be, when you want to be.

And that failure comes from a lack of understanding that the Son is eternal because he is one in the

Trinity. The creature, the man

Jesus, the fully human nature that he had to take on began.

He, in the words of Scripture, humbles himself by taking on the form of a slave.

He accepts a true body, a mortal body.

It contains a reasonable soul. He becomes what he was not.

He was not a man. He was God. God came into the form of man, yet he did not cease to be what he was.

So we have the dual nature. Understand that the

Son did not cease becoming God to become human and then become

God again. He is always God. Now he has also taken on the flesh and become truly man.

This matters a great deal because it teaches us something about the salvation that Christ brings.

It's not something that we can generate. It's not something that we can start.

Listen, we are not merely sick people who need assistance. We're dead people who need resurrection. This is a big distinction.

We aren't confused people who need more information. We're guilty people who need atonement.

We're rebels who need renewal. We are sinners in need of reconciliation.

And so the first step is not a human effort. It's a divine initiative.

I want you to understand something. I don't know how many of you have ever sat through or been a part of or read or understand anything about the current way of observing

Passover. And when I say current, it's been this way for a long time, but it's the method in which

Jewish people still today observe Passover. And Passover is a big feast and they have a

Seder supper. That's kind of the pinnacle of the Passover. And at the

Seder supper, there's an empty place. What's interesting is the empty place is not set for the

Messiah. The empty place is actually set for Elijah.

And at the end of the Seder, in traditional households who observe it according to the

Hadith, they go to the door, they open the door, and there is a blessing that they sing, ushering

Elijah in, welcoming him in, desiring him to come.

And why did I tell you all that? Well, I told you all of that to tell you this. Joseph and Mary and Zechariah and Elizabeth and Caiaphas and all of the

Jews, they weren't sitting around waiting for the Messiah to return. They weren't looking for him.

It wasn't as if they were like the Israelites, 400 years into captivity in Egypt, praying for deliverance.

They were happy cooling their heels. In fact, if you study the intertestinal period between the

Old Testament and the New Testament, what you will find is they were desiring a Messiah because anybody that came along and proclaimed themselves to be

Messiah, they quickly latched onto. But they weren't really looking for what scripture describes.

And so the impetus for this movement was not man.

It was God. God moved. Listen, that truth applies to you and I today.

Salvation does not begin with us. If salvation began with us and salvation was dependent on us doing something, even something simple, then there would have been no need for Christ.

If salvation could begin with us, then Mary and Joseph could have had a son. He was still heir to the throne.

But it doesn't begin with us. It begins with God. And so we get two crucial truths here in scripture.

First, there is this truly human reality of who

Christ is. We see as scripture draws out that He truly is without sin because one right here was shown, demonstrated that He was born of a woman, but because He was not born of man,

He did not share Adam's curse, Adam's fall,

Adam's guilt, Adam's corruption. He didn't enter our world as a sinner in need of salvation.

He entered as the one who is able to save. Why is all of this so important?

It's important because to truly be the

Savior, Christ had to be both

God and man. Christ had to be truly

God and truly man. Let me maybe help you understand why if you don't.

First of all, as a man, as a human being, as demonstrated from Genesis all the way through the

Revelation, a human man cannot bear the infinite weight of divine wrath.

Moses couldn't even see the full glory of God. He couldn't come into His presence without literally being killed.

If we can't even bear the glimpse of glory, how in the world would we ever bear the weight of the wrath of God?

A mere creature not only can't satisfy the justice of God for himself, he certainly can't satisfy the justice of God for the many.

On the flip side of that, if He is only

God, then He cannot stand in place of humanity.

He cannot die. He cannot bleed. He cannot be our representative under the law.

The law that He gave. And so the only way to do those things is to assume our nature, which is where Emmanuel comes into play.

You see, a lot of times we hear that and we go, well, His name wasn't Emmanuel.

It was Jesus. Why don't we just call Him Emmanuel? Because the name isn't always the name.

Sometimes, remember, in that culture, the name describes the individual. And so having this understanding that He was

God with us, that's what it means that He would bear the name Emmanuel, that He would bear that load, that He would be

God with us. He is

God towards man. He is man towards God. He is the only mediator between God and man.

He is the only one who can reconcile sinners. This is what

Job longed for when he said that there was no arbiter to lay his hands on both God and man.

He looked forward to the coming Messiah that would be able to do both.

The mediator to stand between God and man. Christ, the only one who can represent, who can truly bring about justification, who can truly bring us to God righteously.

We talk about these things in church sometimes, but we talk about them in ways as if they're great things to think about, they're great things to know, they're nice sentimental thoughts.

Oh yes, Emmanuel, God with us. We put beautiful Christmas cards out at Christmas time and we sing hymns and praises and all of these things and we paint this all as beauty, but do we understand the reality, the necessity, the importance of this truth, its foundation?

There is no substitutionary atonement. And let me break that word down for you just in case you're confused about it at all.

Substitution is pretty easy. Take the place of. So if something is substitutionary, it stands in your place.

Atonement, price payer, debt payer, punishment receiver in your place.

So as a substitutionary atonement, he is paying this in your stead.

He is paying this in my stead. Not truly man, he cannot obey in our place.

Not truly man, he cannot die in our place. If he's not truly God, his obedience and death cannot have infinite worth.

But because he is both, his work is sufficient. Because he's both, his work is efficient.

What I need you to understand is there's a difference. Something being sufficient means that it is capable of it.

Something being efficient means that it will happen. Brothers and sisters, let me tell you, it doesn't say he might save his people.

It says he shall save his people. And just so we're very clear, his people is not all of humanity.

But what about John 3 .16? I love John 3 .16 because it says whosoever believes. Well, you're not going to believe unless you're his people.

We lay our cards out on the table here, right? And we be clear. The Gospel is not the story of God sending us a helper.

We didn't just get a helper. We didn't just get a wish granter.

We didn't just get a slogan maker. We got a savior.

We got a redeemer. We got a true reality of God with us.

The Gospel is God drawing near. We just spent two plus years going through the book of Exodus to get to a point where God is drawing near to his people to see the reality that that is what

God intends for all of humanity. Not all of humanity, sorry. For all of us, all of his people, for all of eternity.

That's the word I was looking for. That's what we're progressing towards.

And so the angel gives a command to Joseph.

And it's an important command. We often miss this command that Joseph is given, not just to marry

Mary, for it to be okay for him to take her as wife, but that he would call

Jesus by name. You notice what it says here. It says, and you shall call his name

Jesus. Not Mary. This is important. By Joseph being the one who calls

Jesus by name, he is signing legal adoption papers.

Which effectively puts Jesus as a member of the house of David in line for the throne.

On the side of his father. Now if you go and you study Luke, you'll see he's also there by blood through his mother.

But the father is the one who drives the line. It is necessary for Joseph to be the one who would name him.

What's awesome is the name Jesus. Now Jesus, if you study a little bit, you'll know that it is the

Greek form of Yeshua, which is the Hebrew, which literally means

Yahweh saves. Yeshua can also be translated as Joshua.

But every time you hear the name Jesus, every time they called their son by name, what they heard was

Yahweh saves. Do you hear that when you call the name

Jesus? Do you hear Yahweh saves? God saves? You'll notice this is where the angel gives him the reason that we'll call him

Yahweh saves. For he will save his people from their sins. And in doing so, contrary to popular

Israelite and Jewish belief at the time, Rome was not the greatest enemy.

The greatest enemy is identified here. He didn't say he was going to save us from the cultural decay around us, did he?

He didn't say he was going to save us from the signs of the times. He didn't say he was going to save us from poverty, or from sickness, or from oppression, or from any of these things.

What he said was he will save his people from their sins.

The greatest enemy is sin. It's the guilt that it brings, the power that it has on us, the presence in our lives, the consequences that it results in.

Sin is what brought death into the world. You're like, wait a minute, I thought that was the devil. He's the one that taught them into, you know, that old snake in the grass, he's the one that taught them into eating.

But they sinned. Adam and Eve were given the ability to choose.

They could have chosen not to eat, or chosen to eat. Because they had not yet fallen.

But once the decision was made, we fell.

And so now sin is not merely what we do, it is what we are by nature in Adam.

We are sinners. You see, this is why things like education cannot fix us.

Money cannot fix us. Moral resolve cannot cleanse us.

Religious activity cannot store up or atone for us. Because what will happen is, we will do really, really, really good.

Right? This is, we're in March. Today is the first day of March, in case you didn't notice, 20 days until spring.

Or 19, depending on whatever the first day of spring is this year. Now I don't know how many of you sitting here in this room, and we didn't talk about it the first of the year, but people all around the world made

New Year's resolutions. For this year, we're going to do this, and we're going to do that, and we're going to do the other.

We're going to get healthy, we're going to eat right, we're going to start exercising, we're going to start doing this.

That was by January 1. By January 15, there's a large percentage of those that have already dropped off.

By the end of January, there's an even greater percentage. By the time we get to where we are now, there is a minute percentage of people who are actually still carrying out the resolution that they made.

Even brothers and sisters whose resolution was to read their Bible more often. Why? Because we're sinners.

Our nature, our flesh, is sinful. And even those of us who believe, even those of us who are regenerated, even those of us who are redeemed, still fight the battle daily.

And so, the truth is that none of those things will bring about the salvation that we need.

And again, like I've already mentioned, he said, his people. The salvation that Christ accomplishes actually rescues, actually delivers, actually reconciles.

So when the angel says he will save his people from their sins, it includes our justification, the removal of the guilt, making us just, right before God.

But it doesn't stop there. It also includes our sanctification, which is the breaking of that dominion over a period of time.

This is the constant daily battle that you deal with right now. That's you being sanctified.

That's God working in you through the Holy Spirit, battling against those vestiges of flesh and death that hang on to you.

Ultimately, he preserves us. How beautiful is this work?

First of all, he provides something that you could never provide. He provides the opportunity for you to be just in the eyes of God.

You can never do that on your own. Because you can never be good enough. If you don't believe me, go back and read the first five books of the

Old Testament. Just tell me, come back, read those this week, come back, tell me how many of those laws you can say without a shadow of a doubt that you have kept for every moment of every second of every day of your entire life.

And while keeping them, that you love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.

Because here's the deal. We may keep some of them, but we are cursing God because we have to keep some of them.

We don't really like to keep them. Oh, I've got to do it. Why? Well, I've got to do it because that's what the

Bible says. I don't really want to do it. We can't do that.

But he doesn't just leave us in a position where we're made right, but we still have this battle that we have to wage of our own strength.

Now he supplies the strength, moves us through the battle as he sanctifies us, as he grows us in strength, as he grows us in holiness, as he grows us in obedience, moving us in the direction that we should come.

And because he knows that we still hold on to those sinful urges, that death still clings to us, the flesh still clings to us, he says, you know what?

I'm going to make sure that you persevere. I'm going to keep you. You don't have to keep yourself.

And one day, because I kept you, and I sanctified you, and I justified you, then

I'm also going to glorify you and bring you with me forever.

And sin's grasp loses its strength.

That's why the Apostle Paul writes, O death, where is your sting?

Because at the point the Apostle Paul was at in his life, the understanding that he had was like, you know what?

Bring death on. Because for me, to die is gain.

Because I go to be with him. I go to this place. I go to this moment. I'm there.

To be absent with the body is to be present with the Lord. Again, this is different from what the world says.

This is different from what they were looking for. This is different from all of the things that we have seen.

We see the fulfillment. Notice in verse 22, all this took place in order that what was spoken by the

Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled. One of the things we talked about last week is that we will see as we walk, or the first week, is we will see as we walk through the

Gospel of Matthew that Matthew is very cognizant about the fulfillment of prophecy.

And he brings it to our attention. And he demonstrates it to us. And here, already, he's beginning this process of showing, see, this is done so that the prophecy would be fulfilled.

Here's what's happened. Here's the prophecy that it fulfilled. All of these things were done because 700 years ago, through the prophet

Isaiah, the Lord said, I'm going to send a son who will be born of a virgin, you'll name him

Emmanuel, and he'll save his people from their sins. And so we see this reality.

We know that this is the fulfillment of what

God has, it's the movement of God with us in holiness. It's not just this legal transaction.

Because he is God with us, because God is going to bring sinners to himself, it's reconciliation.

And then Matthew returns to Joseph. We see here in verses 24 and 25,

Joseph got up from his sleep. When he got up from his sleep, he got up and he drank a cup of coffee, and he sat around reminiscing about what the angel had said, and he thought about it, and he decided he would wait a little while.

No, it says he got up, and he did what the angel told him to do. This should sound very familiar, especially coming out of the book of Exodus, right?

What did we see Moses and the people doing as they were building the tabernacle? Exactly what

God commanded Moses to do. What did Joseph do? Exactly what God commanded him to do.

He didn't negotiate. He didn't delay. He didn't argue. He didn't say, but you know God, I think there's a better way.

He just went and he took Mary as his wife. He protected her. He bears the cost of identifying with her.

You understand that this still creates a stink of scandal in the life of Joseph.

And yet he says it's worth it. And I'll be obedient. Why? Because what has been born in her, what has been conceived in her is of the

Holy Spirit. And there'll be a son, and you'll call his name Jesus. Why? Because God promised to do this.

And he'll save his people. And then we see

Joseph naming the child. It seems like a very simple statement.

Verse 25, but he kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son, and he called his name

Jesus. I told you a few minutes ago that by naming the child, he was signing, in effect, the legal adoption papers.

It was the right of the father to name the son. You remember the story of Zechariah, John the

Baptist, and Elizabeth, right? He had to write his name on a tablet because he couldn't speak because he laughed at what the angel told him.

The right of naming the child belongs to the father. And by Joseph naming

Jesus, he adopts him.

God works his greatest purpose through simple, ordinary obedience.

He did not ask Joseph to change the world. He did not ask

Joseph to build a megachurch. All he asked Joseph to do was be there for Mary and name the son, care for him as his own.

And we know that's what he did because we see him name him. Later, we see him worried that the child is missing.

We often think God is glorified only through public platforms, that if what we do is not broadcast to the world, then it doesn't matter.

That's worldly thinking. God is glorified in the private choices, the private obedience of his people.

Now, that's not saying that your faith is supposed to be private. You should make it known. But you don't go around saying, hey, everybody,

I obeyed today. Let me show you my list of things that I did that God told me I should do that I went ahead and did because it was in his word and I did it.

That's not how you behave. You simply obey. You make him known.

So what does all this demand from us? Well, first of all, it demands faith.

It demanded faith from Joseph. Where did all of this happen to Joseph?

In a dream. Joseph woke up from the dream. He didn't go, oh, man, that was a crazy dream.

He didn't go out and tell all of his neighbors, y 'all know I had a crazy dream last night. Let me tell you about this dream I had. This angel, can you imagine him telling this and using the description from Ezekiel of an angel so he describes it to his friends?

This wheel within a wheel within a wheel with eyes everywhere and all this other stuff and it spoke to me.

Man, today you'd get yourself a one -way ticket to a straitjacket. It demanded faith of Joseph.

It demands faith of us. But it also demands repentance.

How do I see repentance here? Because I see what I need salvation from.

I need salvation from my sins. It's a heart problem.

It's our guilt before God. It's our bondage to this corruption. And so we must take it seriously.

We can't just say, okay, I won't do that again. Repent means that we turn from that to God.

You're like, yeah, yeah, I repented a long time ago. Great. How about today?

I mean, I'm just going to take a wild guess that everybody in here has already sinned today.

Have you repented? But yeah, yeah, yeah, my sin wasn't that bad.

It was bad enough to send Christ to the cross. Have you repented? You see, the level that you place on your sin makes no difference.

Every sin, repentance is necessary. And repentance doesn't say,

I'm sorry, and then you turn around and do it again tomorrow. But then it also calls us to trust.

Trust the Savior. Trust God with us. Trust that the salvation is not found on our performance.

God initiates it. God sustains it. God brings you through it. How do we know?

Because God saves His people.

His name will be Jesus, for He will save their people from their sins.

Not maybe, not might, not could, will. Shapes how we live because it brings us into union with Christ.

It brings us into this place where we live as He lived. We work and move in what

He has done for us. We are obedient because He moved. It shapes how you live.

The first thing it should do is remind you that you are never alone.

No matter your circumstance. No matter your situation. No matter what you're dealing with.

No matter if there is not another human within a hundred miles and nobody understands what you're going through, let me assure you,

God does. He is, after all,

God with us. He does promise, after all, for lo,

I am with you always. Always literally means always, by the way.

Means all time. Even to the end of the earth.

And as it shapes us, as we move through life and we become unified in Christ, it also shapes the church.

Because what it does is it brings together people who are unified in Christ.

We gather, not to do religious tasks, but to meet with God through Christ.

That's why you gather today. That's why we're going to take communion in a few minutes. Not so that we can walk out with our heads high and our chest poked out, saying we did a good job today.

Patting ourselves on the back. Hey man, we hit all the points that we were supposed to hit. We made all the things that we were supposed to did.

Look, we did them in a certain amount of time. Lastly, it presses us back to the same question that it presses us back to last week.

If God sustained history, if God moved throughout history to send us this

King, this King conceived by the Holy Spirit, named Jesus because He will save us from our sins,

Emmanuel because God is with us, what will you do with Him now?

Let me tell you what you can't do. You cannot stay neutral. You cannot treat

Him as an ornament to your life. You must profess

Him and submit to Him as King, as Lord, as Savior.

Matthew shows us just in chapter 1 the kind of King Jesus is.

The King who saves. The King whose throne is established forever. Whose mission is to redeem

His people. The King who doesn't merely come from afar, but who draws near.

And this leads us into the hope that the rest of the gospel fleshes out for us.

One who came to dwell with us, one who came to save His people will one day lead

His people to dwell eternally with God.

What that means is that Scripture is headed and history and future and our lives and all things are headed right where God intended them.

And that is that we behold the dwelling place of God is with man.

And so we have to answer this question honestly. To those of us who believe already, we still have to deal with this question daily.

What will you do? How will you respond to Christ today? For those who don't believe, for those who have not turned in their sin, who have not come to Him, the question still remains.

What will you do with Jesus? He did not come to save His people in their sins.

He came to save His people from their sins. And because He came to save His people from their sins, neutrality is not an option before the

King of kings and Lord of lords. Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, we thank

You for the unspeakable gift of Christ our Lord, the one conceived by the

Holy Spirit, the one born of the Virgin Mary, the one who has come to save His people from their sins.

We praise You that in Him, You have not remained distant, but You have come near. We confess that our need is not relief from our circumstances, but redemption from our sins.

And we rejoice that Christ came, not to save us and keep us in those sins, but to deliver us from them.

That He came bearing our guilt to the cross, breaking sin's dominion.

Lord, we pray that You fix our eyes upon this King. This King who reigns in redemption, who rules in rescue.

Grant us grace to repent where we have resisted faith, to believe where we have doubted, and obedience to follow where we have strayed.

Lord, give us the strength and the ability to simply rest in this truth that the one who came to dwell among us will one day bring us to dwell with You eternally.

This we ask in the blessed name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. As it is the first Sunday of the month, it is our time to observe communion.