Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery Matthew 1:18-25

Eureka Baptist Church

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November 3, 2019

01:05: As many of you know I help out with the cross -country team at St. Croix Falls and in fact yesterday
01:11: We just had our the state meet one of our runners ran in it, and we were in Wisconsin Rapids yesterday
01:18: About a month ago. We had a meet in Rice Lake and there was one runner from Barron Who stood out above the rest?
01:27: Because of what she had gone through Over the previous year on October 16th 2018
01:34: Jamie Claus's parents were murdered and She was abducted from her home and many many of you remember this story well
01:42: It was all over the news not just the local news, but the national news also Over a period of months police and rescue teams searched and searched to see if there was any trace of her
01:54: They found none and wondered if they would ever find her We know from the news that Abduction cases do not typically end well
02:03: The longer a child is missing the fear is that this child will never return home, but with Jamie people held out hope that They would find her
02:15: That she would be rescued from her abductor and brought back home this hope turned into joy when on January 11th 2019 she was found a
02:26: Woman out walking her dog when Without walking her dog when she noticed a young girl
02:32: Approach her this young girl was Jamie who had escaped from the evil man who was holding her
02:40: The hope that she could be found was not a false. Hope but it but a true.
02:45: Hope and and so many people held on to that and People saw that it was worth not giving up She was rescued from a very dark place and brought to safety
02:59: And as I mentioned earlier, she had gotten back to normal life even running cross -country for Barron High School Now I bring this story up because from a spiritual standpoint our world is in a very dark place
03:14: This world has been this way since the fall in the Garden of Eden as Genesis 3 describes
03:20: But throughout scripture people have been given hope that darkness will be defeated and those in darkness will be rescued
03:28: This hope is not wishful thinking But a certain hope built on the promises of God Throughout the
03:36: Old Testament people were told that a king from the line of David would come into the world to rescue people from their bondage to sin from their slavery to sin as The Lord says through the
03:49: Prophet Isaiah In Isaiah 53 11 after he had suffered
03:54: He will see the light of life and be satisfied by his knowledge many righteous
04:01: Will be justified by him and he will bear their iniquities
04:07: One would come who would deliver his people from darkness to light and he has come
04:14: Two thousand years ago he came and this morning we are going to see his arrival to this earth and We are going to see the prophecy that he would rescue his people from their dark position to bring them into his light
04:33: So this morning we are going to look at Matthew chapter 1 verses 18 through 25 as always
04:38: I encourage you to turn there with me If you're using a red Bible in the pews, it's on page 8807
04:47: This sermon is titled the rescuing King and our big idea is this as promised
04:59: From the Old Testament the Messiah has arrived on a rescue mission to save sinners
05:08: And we're going to see one reason why and that reason is this His people have a bondage from which only he can free them
05:18: His people have a bondage from which only he can free them
05:23: Now before we jump into our text this morning, I'll give you a little recap of last week We looked at the genealogy of Jesus Christ And what we noticed is that Matthew is targeting mostly a
05:35: Jewish audience What he does is he starts his genealogy in verse 1 by saying that Jesus is the son of David and the son of Abraham By using these titles and applying them to Christ He is telling his mostly
05:49: Jewish audience that Jesus is the key piece in the fulfillment of the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants
05:58: God promised Abraham in Genesis 12 3 that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through Abraham's offspring
06:06: This blessing would come Through the most important offspring Jesus Christ who saves his he saves people from all the nations of the earth
06:17: Jesus is also the key piece of the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant in 2nd
06:22: Samuel 7 12 through 16 the Lord promises David That his offspring would sit on the throne of David forever
06:29: And what Matthew's readers would have known is that the Davidic line? Stopped in the 6th century
06:36: BC when the Babylonians came in to Judah and took them into captivity
06:42: But the promise is that one of David's sons would sit on the throne Forever, okay, so they had all these kings one after another and then just stopped 500 years go by no
06:55: King and then he comes So the fulfillment But the
07:01: Davidic covenant is found in the final son of David Jesus the Messiah who has a forever reign
07:07: What we also saw less on is Matthew's emphasis that Jesus descended from the royal line of David This is different from Luke's genealogy who wanted his readers to see
07:18: Jesus actual physical Ancestry Matthew starts with Abraham and then makes his way to David Then he mentions the kings of Israel that lead to Christ On the other hand
07:29: Luke traces Jesus and ancestry down to the first man who ever lived
07:34: Adam What we saw last Sunday is that Matthew emphasized?
07:41: the number 14 The consonants that make up David's name add up to 14
07:47: This once again showed that Matthew wanted his readers to see that Jesus is the Messiah the rightful heir to the throne of David as We look at this line
07:57: My call for us is that we would worship the Lord for his faithfulness in weaving this line together
08:03: What we see is his awesome plan that he providentially brings together as he eventually
08:11: Brings the Messiah through this royal line now this morning We are going to see the arrival of the
08:19: Messiah The Christ into the world and I'm going to read our entire text this morning as we start
08:26: And then we're gonna take it apart verse by verse and we'll pull out what we need to see here So please follow along with me as I read verses 18 through 25
08:37: 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
08:47: Holy Spirit and her husband Joseph being a just man and Unwilling to put her to shame
08:54: Resolved to divorce her quietly But as he considered these things Behold an angel of the
09:01: Lord appeared to him in a dream saying Joseph son of David Do not fear to take
09:08: Mary as your wife For that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit She will bear a son and you shall call his name
09:17: Jesus for hate he will save his people from their sins All this to took took place to fulfill
09:24: What the Lord has spoken by the Prophet behold the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name
09:33: Emmanuel which means God with us When Joseph woke from sleep he did as the angel of the
09:40: Lord commanded him. He took his wife But knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name
09:49: Jesus so we read in verse 18 is that Jesus was betrothed to Joseph when she became pregnant in a little bit
10:05: I'm going to explain to you what betrothal meant in the first century But right now I want to tie it in our account in Matthew with Luke's account
10:14: Last week we saw that Luke was the other gospel that had a genealogy for Jesus the gospel of Luke Also has an account that tells the birth of Christ Since the gospel of Luke gives us much more background on this important important event.
10:28: I I want to read this account as well So this is how Mary found out about her her pregnancy, you know a pregnancy that Did not happen right?
10:39: This was not the normal way things came about So so Luke really helps helps fill us in on this and this is what took place in Luke 1 26 through 35 in the sixth month the angel
10:51: Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was
10:58: Joseph of The house of David and the Virgin's name was Mary and he came to her and said greetings
11:04: Oh favored one the Lord is with you But she was greatly troubled at the same and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be and The angel said to her do not be afraid
11:15: Mary for you have found favor with God And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name
11:23: Jesus He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High and the
11:29: Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end and Mary said to the angel, how will this be?
11:41: since I am a virgin and the angel answered her the Holy Spirit will come upon you and The power of the
11:50: Most High will overshadow you therefore the child to be born will be called. Holy the
11:55: Son of God So Luke Helps us see the background
12:04: Mary finds out from the angel Gabriel that she will bear a son and this would have been the shock of a lifetime
12:13: You can imagine this We don't know exactly how old Mary was when she heard this news, but many have believed that she was a teenager
12:21: Since that was the age when a woman would be asked for her hand in marriage from a man
12:27: And as you might imagine this would have turned her world upside down at this point she she might have been thinking about what she was gonna do and things like that, but All sudden she finds out
12:38: I'm I'm pregnant and It's it's from a means by which no one none of my friends have experienced and no one
12:47: I ever know has experienced now
12:53: The danger of this of course is that people are gonna believe all the wrong things In fact
12:59: During Jesus ministry the Pharisees were no fans of him And this is what they said to him in John 8 41 that they said that he was born in sexual immorality
13:10: And this accusation went with Mary and the family through their whole lives But she needed to keep in mind what the angel told her in the passage from Luke We just read he told her all favored one the
13:24: Lord is with you It doesn't matter what they say. I'm with you
13:31: And this reminded me of what we saw in Genesis with Joseph and Potiphar when Potiphar's wife accused him of making advances on her when when
13:40: Joseph did nothing wrong and What the text said when he was thrown into prison by Potiphar it says the
13:46: Lord was with him Didn't matter what people thought he was in the right
13:53: And this is a good application for us if you suffer and do no wrong But people either falsely accuse you or raise all these opinions against you you are blessed
14:02: That's what first Peter 3 14 tells us So for Mary she is blessed even though some will accuse her of having a child before marriage now back to what betrothal means in verse 18
14:17: Betrothal was a custom that took place before marriage between a man and a woman in our society
14:24: We have a custom that takes place before marriage and that of course is called engagement Now betrothal is a little different from engagement in the betrothal custom the young man's parents
14:35: Chose a young woman for him to marry So whatever they chose You were stuck with right and it makes you grateful that we don't have to deal with that in our day
14:46: We're actually able to choose who our spouse is back. Then the parents decided. This is who you're gonna marry
14:53: Now secondly there was a legal agreement that needed to be reached between the two parties if the betrothal was broken off There would be a formal process known as a divorce that would end the betrothal and call off the future marriage
15:09: Okay, so we see here right the word divorce is not only used for To marry to in a marriage breaking off but to in a betrothal stage breaking off And this is why in verse 19 when
15:21: Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant He wanted to divorce her or other words and the betrothal
15:29: During the betrothal stage sexual relations were considered immoral and if sexual relations were committed with another person
15:36: This was considered adultery So the so we see here the term divorce is applied to to both both stages the premarital and in Marriage and Joseph planned on divorcing because he wanted to protect
15:50: Mary from public disgrace It's fitting that the parents
15:56: God chose for the Messiah Would be righteous would be very godly people and they were
16:04: Joseph and Mary Luke says concerning Mary and 130 that she found favor with God So God of all the of all the young women chose
16:13: Mary to deliver this baby and to enter mother him And in verse 19 of our text we read that Joseph was a just man
16:24: So he was the father the Lord selected to raise
16:29: Jesus Can you imagine the responsibility to raise the most important human who ever lived
16:37: These were two righteous people who were going to raise a child who never sinned think about that That's something
16:45: I can't relate to I know that you can't either We can imagine Mary talking to the other mothers about Jesus He never misbehaves and he always does what we tell him to do
16:56: Now if only our parenting were that easy as we try to raise our children who are born sinners, right?
17:04: And we need to put ourselves in Joseph's shoes here as he's as he's facing this dilemma
17:10: He has two problems with this news That Mary is pregnant first.
17:16: He is a righteous man. And if Mary were unfaithful to him He knew that he could not marry her
17:21: This was not a woman. He wanted to be with and the right thing to do would be to end it
17:27: Secondly because he still cared for Mary. He did not want her to experience public shame
17:33: So the text tells us he resolved to divorce her quietly in the
17:38: Mosaic Law One who committed adultery would be put to death by stoning according to Deuteronomy 22 23 and 24 now in the first century
17:49: The Jews did not have the authority to murder remember we've seen this with with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ The reason the
17:57: Romans had to put him to death is because the Sanhedrin didn't have that authority, right? The Romans had power over the
18:04: Jews at this point in history And so there wasn't a way for them to put an adulterer to death but Mary would have been looked down upon no question about it
18:18: And there would have also been fear that a Jewish mob who were zealous Maybe would have would have would have taken her away and could harm her
18:27: Joseph wanted to delay what might be coming to her by not letting this news get out right away
18:33: He was saying okay. I'm not gonna make this public right now It's probably gonna be public but I'm gonna protect you so he divorces her quietly
18:42: So he's really loving her by doing this and it's neat seeing Joseph's character. He's showing compassion
18:49: Even though he believes Mary betrayed him through unfaithfulness And how often do we see that in this world, right?
18:57: He treats her with grace, even though he believes that she sinned against him And may we be gracious like this when others sin against us
19:05: But before he could divorce Mary an angel of the Lord appeared to him What the angel of the
19:11: Lord tells him in verse 20 is Joseph son of David do not fear to take
19:17: Mary as your wife For that which is conceived is from the Holy Spirit So we already saw in Luke's account that an angel appeared to Mary Telling her that she would conceive through the supernatural work of the
19:32: Holy Spirit now an angel Probably the same angel the angel
19:37: Gabriel appears to Joseph and tells him the same thing Your wife will bear a child and it will be through a virgin birth as the
19:45: Holy Spirit comes upon her This would have been quite an experience Both Mary and Joseph were faithful Jews They knew of stories in the
19:56: Old Testament when an angel appeared to someone and in fact as we went through Genesis we saw
20:02: Several occasions where an angel appeared to to Abraham an angel appeared to Jacob and so on and so forth and when an angel appears
20:13: God's doing a special work in the world a very special work in the world and sometimes when
20:20: We look at the biblical story and we look at our own lives We can come to the conclusion that nothing exciting happens in our time, right?
20:27: We don't we don't typically see an angel Appearing to us and delivering us a message
20:36: And when we see the virgin birth, we need to understand something Why don't we see all these miracles that the
20:42: Bible wrote about and my answer to that is this That the visible miracles gave when when something happens and no one can question what they see
20:51: They see something that's out of the ordinary when visible miracles Happen You know, everybody knows and what's what
20:59: God is doing is he's showing he's doing a special work in the world at that specific point in History and what
21:07: I'm telling you here is that this only happens in small pockets of history. So in other words 98 % of the time things like this don't happen
21:15: So if you go through your whole life with every without ever seen an angel or anything like that, you're in the norm
21:22: It's the people who have experienced that through our history who are in a unique time
21:28: Now some miracles are always happening when we pray and God answers
21:35: That's a miracle When someone experiences the new birth That's a miracle when we grow spiritually.
21:42: That's a miracle when we use the spirits gifting in our lives To serve the body of Christ.
21:48: That's a miracle however Something like seeing someone raised from the dead like Jesus did to Lazarus.
21:57: That's not happening today Lazarus was dead. He was in the tomb.
22:03: It wasn't oh, he might have been you know, it was a near -death experience No, he was he was already buried and Jesus raised him up things like that Do not happen
22:15: In in our world today because it's just it's it's not that specific time
22:20: When God is is doing something extra special like we see right here 2 ,000 years ago when
22:27: God causes this virgin birth He is showing the world that he's doing a very special work.
22:33: The virgin birth would be considered a visible miracle Things like these are way out of the ordinary
22:40: God wanted to show his people that something extraordinary was happening The Messiah the
22:47: God -man was coming into the world and God does the miracle of the virgin birth now, there's another reason why
22:58: God performed a virgin birth for the arrival of the Christ coming into the world an important doctrine of Scripture To understand it plays right into what we see in this text and that's the doctrine of original sin
23:16: Now the doctrine of original sin teaches that Adam sinned and Therefore every human after him is born a sinner
23:24: We are sinners both by nature and by choice the spiritual seed that comes from a man and woman is sinful and It's passed down to the child
23:36: So when a baby is conceived the baby's soul is conceived in sin King David said in Psalm 51 5 that in sin
23:44: His mother conceived me. I'm sorry conceived him now it's interesting that Scripture teaches something very interesting in Hebrews what it teaches is that the the
23:59: Levites who came after Abraham were in the loins of Abraham, okay.
24:05: So in other words in some way the later Jewish people like the Levites were were in Abraham and In some way every person in human in human history was in Adam when he sinned okay, so in that in the sense that we come from his seed we were present when he sinned and Therefore the human race sinned when he sinned and it's passed down to us
24:29: Okay. Now, this is a great mystery, but this is what the Bible teaches. And so we accept it
24:35: In fact, Paul explains it very clearly in Romans 5 12 through 21
24:40: If you if you want to read it when he talks about how how it is that we become sinners because of Adam's sin
24:47: But as we look at the virgin birth, what we see is that Jesus is not conceived from the spiritual seed of Adam and Mary but rather the
24:57: Holy Spirit formed a Spiritual seed that is holy in Mary's womb.
25:02: So every person on earth is born a sinner by nature except for one Jesus and This is so important because verse 21 cannot happen without verse 20
25:18: Verse 21 is the most important verse in our text this morning Okay, so if you have your Bibles with you, which
25:23: I hope you do you can underline verse 21. That's the key verse of our passage The angel says to Joseph in verse 21
25:31: She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus for He will save his people from their sins.
25:43: Do you see what I see here? Jesus is protected from inheriting a sinful nature
25:51: By the Holy Spirit and verse 21 says that he will save his people from their sins
26:02: Why is Jesus being protected from sin at conception so it's so important right you see it
26:08: He can't sin to be our sin bearer. He needs to be perfect in The Old Testament when it when a
26:16: Jew would offer up a sacrifice a lamb It would have to be one without blemish in the same way
26:25: Jesus is as the New Testament says he's a he's a he's the lamb without blemish or defect. He is perfect He is sinless and if Jesus ever sinned he could not bear our sins and we would all be hopelessly left in our transgressions only to await punishment
26:45: Hebrews 7 26 and 28 says this concerning Jesus for he was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest.
26:52: Holy innocent unstained Separated from sinners and Exalted above the heavens.
26:59: He has no need like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily First for his own sins and then for the sins of the people since he did this once for all when he offered up himself
27:11: For the law appointed men in their weakness as high priests But the word of the oath which came later than law appoints a son who has been made perfect forever
27:22: And Jesus is able to bear our sins because of his perfection he is given the name
27:28: Jesus for a reason You know the name Jesus means it means Yahweh Saves right the name
27:36: Yahweh is the name of God the name if you see the capital letters in the Old Testament That's that's the name
27:41: Yahweh Yahweh saves and before you come to faith in Christ Jesus what
27:53: Jesus what what what what position you are in is that you are in a position of bondage and what scripture teaches here
28:00: Is that Jesus saves his people from their spiritual bondage? When you weren't saved
28:10: You were a slave to sin, but when you Come to faith in Christ you become a slave to righteousness
28:17: So everybody has a master. It just depends. Who is your master? The Apostle Paul explains that in Romans 6 17 and 18
28:28: People think that they can run from God and do anything they want They believe the lie from Satan that they are free
28:35: We talked about that in Sunday school today Oh We take the gifts of God and turn and make them sinful to say well
28:41: We can make this more fun than when God designed these things to be and so people think they're free they can go do what?
28:47: they want But this could not be farther from the truth when you don't have Christ you are not free but entirely in bondage
28:56: Now what Matthew is teaching his readers is that Jesus is not only the Messiah, but Savior He made it abundantly clear last week that Jesus is the
29:07: Messiah the Davidic King from whom You know he comes from the whole line of David.
29:14: He's the keys the royal lineage He's the one that it all points to and now in verse 21.
29:19: We read that he will save his people from their sins This would this would have been something that his
29:24: Jewish readers needed to hear in their mind The Messiah was going to come and he was going to drive out all of their political enemies.
29:33: The Romans were going to be gone Israel was going to be a superpower. They were going to reign over the earth and That's not how
29:42: He came the first time As I mentioned two weeks ago in the introduction to Matthew This was quite a revelation to the
29:50: Jews that he was going to suffer He was going to be a suffering Messiah Isaiah 53 told them that he would suffer for the sins of the people but many refused to believe this because they had no concept from there from their sinful
30:08: Understanding of a king who would be brutally murdered But he was
30:15: Matthew makes it clear. He is going to save his people from their sins and the means by which he's going to do it is bloody
30:23: Jesus will later tell his disciples that salvation is going to be accomplished through crucifixion
30:31: Which was it's the most brutal form of death that man has ever invented Now Matthew wants to make it abundantly clear to his readers that all of this is in fulfillment of the scriptures specifically the
30:46: Old Testament So he writes in verse 23 Behold the
30:51: Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel which means
30:57: God with us And so we have to find out where in the Old Testament is this quotation and it comes from Isaiah 7 14 this is a direct fulfillment of that prophecy and so even the virgin birth is predicted in the
31:15: Old Testament What we see here is a name is attached to him. That name is Emmanuel We don't have to wonder what it means because the text tells us what it means.
31:24: It means God is with us This title would tell the readers and it tells us that the
31:30: Lord Was doing a special work in the world The name God with us shows that God is faithful to fulfill his promises in Isaiah's day
31:40: King Ahaz Was looking for a sign That the
31:45: Lord would not forsake Judah and the royal lineage from David and the Lord's sign Was that far off in the future?
31:53: The Messiah would come from a virgin and he has told beforehand that God is with this lion
31:59: And he will bring it to pass This ultimate fulfillment of this Messiah born of a virgin and when the angel visited
32:07: Mary the time of fulfillment has arrived The people of Matthew's day both
32:13: Jews and Gentiles reading this would say that God is with us he has brought hope to the world and That hope is that he sent the
32:24: Son of David the Son of God To save them from their sins to save his people from their sins
32:32: God does not leave sinners hopeless in the Garden of Eden when Adam sinned
32:37: The Lord gives humanity a glimmer of hope by saying that the seed of the woman
32:43: Will come and he will crush the head of the serpent The serpent is Satan and of course the seed of the woman is
32:50: Jesus Then throughout the Old Testament this light shined and the prophecies giving hope to a fallen world that he was coming
32:58: And now as we see in the text today, he came and Came to reign as the
33:05: Old Testament foretold But the title Messiah or Christ Even though it does carry with it a royal connotation
33:16: But before he could reign he had to suffer That's why in Hebrews 9 28 the author of Hebrews says that Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many will appear a second time not to deal with sin like he did the first time
33:31: But but when he comes the second time he's gonna save those who are eagerly waiting for him So in other words
33:37: Jesus first time here on earth. He was on a mission and that mission
33:44: Was to rescue people from their bondage to sin from their bondage to the world from their bondage to the devil
33:53: Ephesians 2 1 through 3 describes That anybody who doesn't know Christ is a bondage to Satan the world that the sinful
34:01: Sinfulness of the world and your own sinful nature in this light
34:08: The light of Christ shines so bright it shined bright 2 ,000 years ago
34:13: And it shines bright today in this dark and fallen world. Jesus is the only hope we have
34:19: To be brought into the light to remain with him in the light
34:26: Forever and you might say well, this sounds so exclusive it is
34:33: Jesus doesn't leave a room for any other way He says I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the
34:39: Father except through me We take him at his word He know Jesus knows.
34:44: He's the only hope for humanity and that's why he came to die for sinners I was explaining this to one of my friends yesterday who doesn't know the
34:51: Lord and I pray that that he will believe In in Christ and see how much he needs him
34:59: And what we have seen in this text today our big idea is this as Promised the
35:06: Messiah has arrived on a rescue mission to save sinners And we've seen one reason why his people have a bondage from which only he
35:17: Can free them and if you are here today, you know the Lord you've been freed That's why
35:22: Jesus says in John 8 The truth sets you free and you will be free indeed and when
35:29: Jesus says the truth he's referring to himself He sets you free and you have a freedom that you never had before So Emmanuel is with us
35:40: God is with us and he showed us this by sending his son and he is working in the world and he's calling people to Join him to leave their bondage to sin and be set free whenever you share the gospel someone
35:53: That's what you're doing. You you're calling them to leave this bondage and to have this freedom in Christ and maybe you're here today and you don't know the
36:01: Lord and I'm calling you right now through the Word of God to embrace
36:06: Jesus Christ to be set free to believe in him and and I say this realizing that We're on we're on our days are numbered
36:16: We don't have unlimited time There was a 19th century preacher named
36:21: EM bounds Who said that when he preached he was a dying man preaching to dying people
36:29: All right, and you can listen to old you can listen to old preachers who are long dead and you hear them Share the gospel.
36:35: It's true. They're dead and the people they were preaching to are now dead. The question is what did they do?
36:41: With those words that they heard and here we are now though. We're not dead. We're alive And so the question is what do we do?
36:48: With the call, you know, I'm a dying man Preaching to dying people and as humans
36:56: As we look at about our life as we look at our lives It feels so permanent right and then and then it passes and you wonder where did it go?
37:04: And we always like to plan ahead, which is good We should plan ahead, but my concern is that people plan so much for this life and they don't plan for eternity
37:14: Which is forever. I remember I saw a pastor He gave an illustration one time and he brought it up on the stage and he had a rope
37:21: This long rope and there was this little little red tape at the end of this rope and the rope just kept going and going and going and What was that little red tape in this illustration he gave?
37:35: It it's our life So our life is this little red tape on this long piece of rope.
37:42: And of course the analogy falls apart because That rope goes forever according to Scripture, right?
37:49: We don't know. No, of course ropes don't only go so long But in the illustration Eternity's forever.
37:55: It doesn't end and our life is this little Piece of time and so the question is what do we do with it?
38:03: Do we do we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do we do we call others to believe in him as well?
38:11: And so it's it's so important that we don't squander the one life that God has given us and be lost
38:17: Forever. I mean, yes plan for retirement but a gazillion times more plan for eternity and That's where people make a huge mistake focusing on that last 20 years of life instead of Forever you can't compare the two
38:37: So we see here today Emmanuel is with us. He is the light shining in the dark place and he has died so that you might live if you will believe in him
38:48: So are you with the light or with the darkness once God brings you to the light? He will never let you go as Jesus said in John 8 12
38:55: I am the light of the world whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life
39:05: And what concerns me and Barb and I were talking about this this morning What concern is that when you ask people do you want to be on the side of good?
39:14: Pretty much everyone will say yes Right. It's hard to find someone who says no, I want to be the bad guy
39:20: You know, most people will say right I want to be on the good side But if you're not with Christ, you are not on the good side
39:27: And this is quite a shocker to people who think they are good Remember when the rich young ruler in the
39:33: Gospels he comes to Jesus and he calls him. He says he says good teacher and And of course the rich young ruler didn't know who
39:41: Jesus that Jesus was was God incarnate He just thought he was a good moral teacher and what
39:47: Jesus says to him is no one's good except God alone That's what Paul says right
39:53: Romans 3. No one is righteous Not even one Before you can enjoy before you can join the good side.
40:01: You need to realize that that you are bad You need to realize that if God is not ruling your life than Satan is
40:10: And I mentioned that the three bondages that we have sin Satan and the world
40:16: But when God saves you what happens is what the Apostle Paul describes in Colossians 1 12 through 14
40:23: This is such a wonderful passage here He says he has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the
40:29: Saints and light he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and Transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved
40:35: Son in whom we have redemption the forgiveness of sins the mission that Jesus Accomplished as we will see as we go through Matthew as he goes to the cross and and is raised from the dead the mission is to save his people from their bondage to sin
40:50: Satan and death and To be rescued from this is such a wonderful place to be you words can't even describe
40:59: How wonderful the position is to be with Christ and how horrible it is to be on the other side
41:08: Now as we close here, let's see. Let's let's close out this passage here by looking at how Joseph responds to the angels command in the dream and Mary in verses 24 and 25
41:22: So what did Joseph do here when Joseph woke from sleep? He did as the angel of the
41:27: Lord commanded him He took his wife But knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name
41:34: Jesus, okay, so so the angel appears to him Tells him about the virgin birth and Joseph does the right thing.
41:42: He stays married With with Mary in fact, I should say he stays betrothed and then eventually here not too long down the road.
41:50: They get married and They in the text says that they don't have physical relations until she had given birth to Jesus And these two parents would raise
42:01: The most important man who ever lived right the only hope of the world the one who would save his people from their sins and That is what we have seen today
42:13: In our text to this this Messiah. He is not just one who reigns he's one who saves and we
42:22: Should worship him for that. In fact, we will worship him forever For what he did at the cross
42:28: Now next Sunday We will see Jesus a little bit older Where the wise men visit him.
42:35: He's a little child He'll be a little child at this point And and we're doing
42:41: Christmas a little bit early this year. Okay, so Christmas is just about two months away But we're already going we're going through the beginning of Matthew, which of course is the birth of Christ So it's kind of a little
42:53: It prepares us for the season that's coming And and may we think rightly during the season as we as we look at what
43:01: God has done in Jesus Christ So let's pray as we close this morning Father in heaven,
43:07: I thank you for the Word of God It's living and active sharper than a two -edged sword
43:13: It pierces soul and spirit and discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart
43:21: It has an ability that no other book has and So Lord, I pray that the
43:27: Holy Spirit would Work in each person's heart individually
43:33: Appropriately wherever they are at this morning That you would encourage the believers in this room
43:40: If anyone among us doesn't know Jesus Christ as Lord Savior and treasure.
43:45: I pray that they would believe And the heart of stone would be softened this day and That they would be brought to the light of Christ Thank you
43:58: Lord for sending Jesus to bring us to the light and it's in his name.