It's indeed an exciting day today for a number of reasons, but I think it is most exciting
that today we are going to see something incredibly glorious about Jesus the Messiah.
So before we come together and explore the text of what Matthew has to say to us and
what God is saying through Matthew, would you please join me in prayer? Father God, we are
indeed grateful as we have heard this morning that you have called us, that you have brought
us together, not just here in Amadale, but in all places in the world.
And we thank you, Father, that you haven't left us wondering, but you have revealed who
you are.
And today as we go through this text, through your word, these words of yours, we ask that
your spirit would work among us, soften our hearts, Father, and whole Christ high among
us.
We ask for this in Jesus' name, Amen.
So it has been mentioned, we are in a series, and so last week you might remember that
Matthew started his gospel with the bold claim that this wasn't just any old family tree
that he was presenting, but that he was giving the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, chapter
1 verse 1.
And we know what Matthew's intention was because that word Messiah is absolutely packed full
of meaning, because as we saw, it means the anointed one.
Now let's be clear here, Matthew wasn't writing to his audience to say that Jesus was just
one of the anointed ones, which was another name for the Kings of Israel, but that he
was writing about the anointed one, to which the law and the prophets pointed to.
That's what we saw Matthew asserting in chapter 1 last week.
We saw that he was showing his original Jewish audience that this Jesus that he followed
wasn't just some famous preacher that happened to get hold, just happened to have a lot of
people listen to him.
No, Jesus was the son of David, meaning he was from the tribe of Judah, meaning he was
the rightful heir to the throne.
Not only that, but that he was the son of Abraham, which as we saw, meant he qualified
for the job of the blessing of the whole world, which was promised by God in Genesis 12.
Now there was certainly big picture stuff that we looked at last week, tracing the Messiah's
lineage all the way back to the patriarchs.
And it's interesting when you look at the other evangelists because they do similar
things in their gospel.
For example, Luke takes his genealogy back to Adam, and John takes his Jesus origin story
all the way back into eternity past.
And they do that because the evangelists had different audiences in mind to which they
were writing to.
For example, John wanted to show the divinity of Jesus to the church, which was dealing
with heresy at the time, Luke wanted to show how Jesus isn't only the saviour of the Jews,
but also of all of those who come from Adam, being the Gentiles.
And Matthew, well, as we saw, he set out to show his audience how Jesus was the rightful
heir to the throne of his father, David, and thus Israel's long-awaited Messiah.
That was big picture stuff, but this morning, Matthew does something here in our text that
he will continue to do all throughout his gospel.
And that study, he honed in on some details of Jesus's life that are very important for
his audience to understand.
Not just because they really happened, but because they were actually the fulfillment
of something that was said about him many years ago.
Something important that the life of Jesus fulfilled for a purpose.
So let's get into our text before us and have a bit of a run-through and then see what
Matthew wants us to understand about this incredibly special person that he presents
to us as the Messiah.
So verse 18 says, this is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about.
Just to say something about this, notice how Matthew doubles down here.
No, in fact, triples down.
Remember the original audience he was writing this gospel to and why he was writing it?
Was to convince the Jews and encourage converts that this Jesus was the Messiah who they were
expecting to come.
Matthew starts his whole book by saying this is the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah.
Then in verse 16 he says, Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus
who was called the Messiah.
And then again here in our text before us, verse 18, this is how the birth happened
of Jesus the Messiah, yet the picture.
Well, Matthew's assertion of Jesus being the Messiah is certainly happening here in quite
a forward sense, but I think he's also doing something here that is quite subtle as well.
You see, by continuously calling Jesus the Messiah at various points in this narrative,
Matthew is wanting us to link the genealogy and Joseph and Mary's marriage to this specific
story that we have before us this morning, which is to say it's all connected and we're
meant to see that it is all centered on Jesus the Messiah.
And though Abraham and David and Joseph and Mary are all in view here, they're only supporting
characters, if you will, supporting characters to elevate Jesus to the forefront.
Here's the main character, meaning all this historical information, it's all here to
show us something about Jesus.
In other words, Jesus is at the center of it all, it's his story.
That's what we're meant to have in the back of our minds as we read through this passage
this morning.
And though they are very important characters, at the end of the day, this isn't the story
of Joseph and Mary, not even of David or Abraham, but of Jesus, the Messiah.
The church with that in mind, let's read on verse 18 and get some details about how the
birth of Jesus came about.
We read his mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph.
Now a little bit of cultural background is going to really help us here.
You see verse 18 says that Mary was pledged in marriage, meaning she was engaged to Joseph,
which meant that the marriage wasn't yet consummated.
Now this might not mean a lot to us here in 21st century Australia, but this phrase pledged
to be married has significant meaning in the ancient world.
I found New Testament scholar Grant Osborne's comment very helpful here.
He says engagement in the ancient world meant a great deal more than it does today, because
it was legally binding in that a contract was signed by witnesses and could be broken
only by a document that was written to divorce.
Therefore if the so-called husband, as he was considered were to die, the engaged woman
would be considered a widow and she was to be taken care of even though the marriage had
not yet been consummated until the wedding night.
That's helpful.
Now because Mary and Joseph were virtually married in this context, all that was waiting
for them to do was to physically live together and physically consummate their marriage.
But as we read here, before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the
Holy Spirit and so church with that background that we've just looked at, that is a pretty
glaring statement, right?
I mean these two were virtually married yet she is found to be pregnant and not of Joseph.
Now Matthew adds that this is from the Holy Spirit to show that there's more going on
here, but as we're about to see, Joseph doesn't quite get that bit straight away.
So you can imagine you've got this couple who have this future who have this hope and
then Joseph finds out that he's soon to be wife is pregnant.
Imagine the emotions.
Imagine what was going through this man's head when he heard this.
I mean he would have been looking forward to the future with this woman thinking of their
married life together, but as she revealed to him that she was pregnant.
Think about the feelings of devastation and hurt.
Now say all of this because we do get a glimpse into his thinking in verse 19.
We read in verse 19 here because Joseph, her husband, was faithful to the law and yet did
not want to expose her to public disgrace.
He had in mind to divorce her quietly.
See that?
To you in that text, it's not like she came to him and said the most wonderful thing has
happened, Joseph, and he got all excited and ran outside and said, Praise God, thank you.
It's a miracle.
Now as we read here, when he found out, he started to put in motion a way to lawfully
divorce her, meaning for whatever reason he wasn't convinced that she hadn't been unfaithful.
Now basically, he had two options here, public disgrace or privately ended all.
Now we might ask, what is the public disgrace that Matthew is alluding to here?
Well, the seventh commandment of the law says, they shall not commit adultery.
To expand it on in places like Leviticus 2010 saying if a man commits adultery with
another man's wife, both the adultra and the adultras, there to be put to death.
Here what's being said here, if one was found guilty in the Jewish courts of committing
adultery under the law of Moses, they would face the death penalty.
That's what's on the line here.
So again, imagine the scene, Joseph was in the midst of these feelings of betrayal yet
in the midst of it all, in the midst of his pain, his suffering, he planned to not put
her in the public eye and disgrace her and have her put under trial.
As we read here in verse 19, he wanted to divorce her, but wanted to do it quietly.
Which is to say, Joseph wanted to maintain righteousness, yet his desire was to also
have compassion for the woman to whom he was engaged, even though he considered her an
adultress.
Now, as I said before, this passage is primarily about Jesus, the Messiah.
However, I want you to think about what Matthew was shown us here, what Matthew shows us
of Joseph in the midst of this incredible pain.
It shows us that Joseph shows incredible mercy.
This is a man who in his mind had been betrayed in a phenomenal way, yet he showed mercy in
the midst of it all, where he could have taken his source of pain to the temple courts to
have her disgraced and possibly killed, he instead chose compassion and mercy in it
all.
It's little wonder that Matthew makes that quick comment, that he was a faithful man.
Verse 19.
So, as all of this was going on, as all of this emotion and thoughts were going through
Joseph's mind, or as he considered this as verse 20.
Let's take a sudden turn in our narrative, doesn't it?
We read, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is
from the Holy Spirit.
It's interesting what's happening here, Church.
I mean, the angel said, Joseph, son of David.
I want you to notice that, we're not meant to just skip over that little detail.
We're meant to see it because it again reminds us here that Jesus wasn't born into a random
family.
No, his mother's husband, Joseph, was in the keenly line of David.
That's obviously not all that is happening here, right?
Oh, it's as the angel says, what is conceived in Mary is from the Holy Spirit.
I mean, I can't imagine how this guy felt.
He's engaged to be married, then he finds out that his fiance is pregnant, and so he
goes about considering how to deal with this problem quietly.
And then an angel comes to him in a dream and reveals what is going on is a move of
God.
That's not all the angel has to say here.
He goes on verse 21, she'll give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus
because he will save people from their sins, to which Matthew adds another comment.
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet.
The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, which
means God with us, verses 23 and 24.
I mean, church, what a scene we have before us this morning.
In the midst of it all, in the midst of this confusion, an angel comes and says, Joseph,
your wife's going to have a son, he's conceived of God, you're going to adopt him and you're
going to give him the name Jesus.
This is the thing that's astounding.
We read on in verses 24 and 25, when Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord
had commanded him.
He took Mary home as his wife, but he did not consummate their marriage until she gave
birth to a son and gave him the name Jesus.
What an incredible picture of obedience in the midst of obscurity.
A virgin mother, an angelic dream, yet no questions, no conditions, no are you sure
about this statements.
Now, as we read here, Joseph obeys.
I want you to notice that, verses 24 and 25, he obeys in every jot and tittle that was
spoken to him.
It's an incredible picture of faith in the New Testament.
So church, as I said, we would do a quick run-through and now that we've done that with
the narrative, let's step back a bit and have a think about what Matthew wants us to know
about this Jesus who he has presented to us as Messiah.
Well, first things first is Jesus had a supernatural entrance into this world.
We see this in verses 18 and 20.
Think about what Matthew is telling us here.
His mother, she was a pregnant virgin.
But in saying that, he makes sure to tell us she wasn't pregnant through anything shady,
but that Jesus was conceived in her by the very spirit of the Most High.
So with that said, Jesus is physically and biologically Mary's son, meaning he is a very
real human, but also completely and very, really God.
And because he wasn't made in the natural sense of the word, Matthew makes sure to tell
us of Joseph's adoption of him, verses 24 and 25, because Joseph's marriage to Mary legitimized
Jesus as his son and grafted him into the line of David.
That's key to understand in what Matthew was showing us here, because Jesus was conceived
by the Holy Spirit and born to the Virgin Mary, Joseph's marriage to Mary legitimized
Jesus as a true son of David.
But I also want you to notice here this morning why Jesus came.
We see this in verse 21.
He came to save people from their sins.
That's why Jesus came church.
That's why he was conceived by the Holy Spirit.
That's why God, as we saw last week, providentially bought all of this about.
It was to save people from their sins.
And let's not miss this this morning.
That's why Jesus had to be conceived by the Holy Spirit and born to the Virgin Mary because
it is God who saves man.
There is nothing you and I can do to save ourselves from our sins, meaning salvation is
not the work of man.
It is a supernatural work of God.
And this is made evident from the very way that Jesus enters into our world as very God
and very man.
And I want to say a bit more on this.
I want to say a bit more that Jesus is very man because we need to understand that Jesus
is fully human.
Don't let yourself picture Jesus without true humanity.
The writer to the Hebrews says in chapter 2 of his book, since the children have flesh
and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power
of him who holds the power of death, that is the devil.
And free all those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
For surely it's not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants.
For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way.
In order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God
and that he might make a torment for the sins of the people.
Do you hear what's being said here this morning?
Jesus is fully human in every way.
He was born like us meaning he possesses the full range of human characteristics like
ours.
That's the reality that Matthew faces us with here in chapter 1.
Jesus came into this world as a baby that needed to be fed and nurtured and cared for
so he could grow in the same way as a baby he does now.
And time escapes us this morning, but as we look all throughout the New Testament we
see that he had to sleep, that he possessed a human mind that he was troubled in his spirit
and wept when he saw people in great need.
All this to say, brothers and sisters, Jesus is not unlike us trying to do something for
us.
No, Jesus is a true representative of us before our Heavenly Father, meaning we have
a Savior, a high priest who is familiar with our struggles, physically, mentally, emotionally.
We have a Savior who is familiar with our sorrow.
We have a Savior who is familiar with suffering and who is able to identify with you and me
because he was physically born of a woman.
Yet in saying all of that, we also see that Jesus is fully divine.
We see this in our passage this morning, don't we?
His humanity and his deity together, Jesus is very man, but he is also very God.
And again, we could go all through the New Testament and see this as he was able to forgive
sin and that he was sinless.
We see that he was able to heal disease and give sight to the blind, that he had command
over nature and could rebuke demons and make them flee and just a word and that he could
even bring people back from the dead.
Why?
Because Jesus isn't just a man, but very God.
And this passage that we have before us this morning, this extraordinary miracle that Matthew
was presenting is what we call the incarnation.
That's what we have before us this morning.
Matthew was showing us that this Jesus, this long-awaited Messiah, well, he wasn't just
a man, but God, fully man, fully God in the one person of Jesus.
Now, if you're sitting here this morning and you're thinking to yourself, how on earth
does this all fit together, Michael, God, man, Jesus, well, you're not alone.
Don't feel like you have to totally understand everything that we're talking about.
Church, this is the most incredible miracle that we are talking about here, God becoming
man and dwelling with us.
It's little wonder that the Apostle Paul said, beyond all question, the mystery from which
true godliness springs is great.
Just Timothy 3, 16.
Yet I do want to say, Church, just because we don't fully understand it, just because
it is a mystery to us, it never means we should discard it or deny it.
Why?
Because God has revealed it to us in his word and he has revealed Jesus and he's revealed
that he didn't just appear out of thin air, no, as we see here, he was conceived of the
Holy Spirit and born to the Virgin.
Brothers and sisters, this is the wonder and awesome mystery of our God in his perfect
wisdom, in his creative sovereignty.
He ordained a virgin birth to be the avenue through which Jesus would come so that he
would be fully man from a woman, fully God, from the Holy Spirit, all so that he could
save people from their sins.
One last thing to say about all of this as we bring this incredible passage to a close
and it's this, Matthew is making clear to us that whenever God
makes a promise in his word, he fulfills it in his world.
I want to say that again, whenever God makes a promise in his word, he fulfills it in his
world and that's what Matthew brings out here in chapter 1 for the people of God.
That's why he includes Isaiah 7, 14 for us.
Let me explain what I'm saying here.
You see, nearly 700 years before Jesus walked the earth, there was a prophet in Israel named
Isaiah and through him, God made a promise to the king at the time that a virgin would
conceive and bring forth a son.
We heard it read out for us this morning.
We don't have time to go there.
I wanted you to hear it, but essentially the promise was made to ensure the king that God
wouldn't let Israel's enemies come in and trample them.
Now for whatever reason, there's no chapter and verse in the rest of Isaiah that seems
to completely fulfill what was said there on that day and there's a bit of discussion
around that.
But what is absolutely clear is that Matthew under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit
shows us that Isaiah's prophecy that it finds its fullest expression in Jesus the Messiah.
That's what's important.
That 700 years before Jesus came on the scene, God gave a promise that a virgin would have
a son and that people would call him Emmanuel, which means God with us.
And church, this is the astounding claim.
Matthew says that that was said and fulfilled in Jesus, verse 22.
Church, this is what we need to understand this morning.
This is the incredible reality that Matthew is bringing out here in this passage.
I don't want us to miss it.
The infinitely great God who was mighty in power and awesome in wonder out of his love
for his people has come to us and for us.
That's the gospel.
Almighty God has come to us to save us from our sins.
That's what Matthew wants us to see in this passage.
God in Jesus came into this world and came to rescue the lost and this is the incredible
reality of the gospel.
God took on flesh and came into a sin-stained world for you and me, stained men and women
to take the penalty of our sin in our place.
I want you to think about that this morning.
You and I, with a sinful nature, naturally separated from God, condemned before God,
cut off from God, deserving of wrath, eternal death, hell.
God didn't leave us.
God didn't forsake us.
He promised to come and he came in the virgin birth of Jesus.
He came among us to us and lived the life we couldn't.
Died the death we deserved and then rose from the grave conquering the enemy we couldn't.
Church there is no greater story to tell people.
No greater reality, no greater truth than people seeing all of this.
This is our God.
This is Jesus, the Messiah.
How does any of this apply to us this morning?
Two things.
If you have never called upon the name of the Lord, then friend, you are here by no accident
this morning.
In God's sovereignty over all there is, you have been laid here this morning to hear
the gospel.
Forgiveness of sins, reconciliation to your Creator, eternal life is really being held
out to you this morning and I plead with you to not walk out of this place without doing
serious business with God.
If that's you, you are welcome to come and speak to me or one of the elders after the
service if you want to know more.
One other thing that I want you to realize, Church, is this, the God who spoke a promise
in the seventh century BC fulfilled it in Christ and it's with that picture I want you
to know right where you are sitting this morning that the God who gives us promises in his
Word, even though we might not see it clearly in the present in our lives, he always proves
faithful to his promises.
The God in Christ, he says to us, in Christ, the God who says, I will never leave nor forsake
you will absolutely prove faithful to that promise in your life.
The God who says, I'll supply all your needs according to the glorious riches in Christ
Jesus will prove faithful to that promise in your life.
The God who says, neither death nor life nor angels nor demons, the present, the future
nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will ever be able to
separate you from his love.
The God who promised these things will absolutely fulfill that promise.
And the God who was promised that there is coming a day when he will wipe away every
tear from your eyes, whether we know more mourning, no more crying, no more pain, no
more sickness, no more sin, no more death with the old God, the new calm, the God who promised
all of that will prove faithful to that promise.
You can no matter what your life looks like right now.
You can bet your life for all eternity on the reality that God will always be faithful
to his word.
And we see it no more clearly than in the life, the death and resurrection of Jesus,
the Messiah.
Would you pray with me, Church?
Father, this is indeed an incredible day where we have, by your providence, you're sustaining,
you have brought us together to hear this good news.
And Father, I'm not aware of everything, but you are aware of all the things that are going
on in this room right now.
We trouble the pain, the regret, the hardship, things that are making your people feel sick,
condemned.
Father, I ask that by your Holy Spirit this morning that you would hold Christ high in
their lives, that you would show them the good news, that you have done everything that
we need to do, that you are calling us to yourself, that your promises are indeed true,
that our hope is not what we see, but in you.
We ask, and I ask, Father, for your people this morning, would you work the gospel into
their hearts ever so deeply?
We ask for this in Jesus' name, amen.