The Narratives and Names of Christmas

Christian Liberty and Preaching a 'Christmas Message'

0:00 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, December 22, 2002, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Seated here in this place this morning are many earnest Christians who are one mind and one heart in the profoundly and deeply important issues of the Christian faith. But at the same time, those earnest Christians, profoundly one in the issues of life and death, are at the same time greatly diversified in their thinking and in their practice with matters that are not related to the life and death issues of the Christian faith.

1:00 blissfully, wonderfully, joyfully, essentially one, and yet refreshingly, truly, really, and greatly different in many things. And one of those areas of diversity has to do with the season that now encompasses us and what we believe we ought to do with that season, how we ought to view it, how we ought to personally and in our families practice any remembrance of it. And in our adult class last Lord's Day morning, I addressed that matter of legitimate diversity in that area

1:48 and in many other areas which we have jealously guarded because such diversity in matters that are not life and death issues of the Christian faith, clear right or wrong issues of biblical morality, come within the purview of what we commonly call Christian liberty. That is, matters in which every individual believer must, in the language of Paul, be fully persuaded in his own mind. And if some of you wonder why you've come into a building and there are no poinsettias and no little Christmas trees and no trappings of the season in terms of ornaments, it's because we do not want to impose on people's eyeballs in this place something that would be grievous to them,

2:41 something that they believe perhaps has no place in their own individual lives, and they would feel that something was being forced upon them. However, if you were to go into many of our homes or even drive up to the outside of our homes, you'd see lots of wreaths and poinsettias, and I don't know that you'd see any reindeer on our lawns. I haven't done a survey around the homes of our people. But it would be evident that we're not all a company of scrooges who say, It's a humbug, a plague on the whole rotten business.

3:14 But there is this diversity of perspective and this diversity of practice, and we're very comfortable with that diversity. In fact, those of us in leadership jealously guard it. However, because there is this essential oneness in the saving truth of Christ, in a context in which there is blessed diversity in matters not related to that truth, I have never been reluctant to turn to the Bible in the Lord's Day closest to Christmas and preach a, quote, Christmas message, because no true Christian is ever uncomfortable when a servant of God opens the word of God in his or her presence and preaches that word. And so with a great deal of confidence that I'm offending no one by preaching a quote Christmas message, you can just call it an exposition of a passage that has to deal with the coming and the birth of the Lord Jesus.

Reading the Narrative of Jesus' Birth from Matthew 1

4:14 You give it whatever title you want, but we're going to turn together this morning to the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 1. The Gospel of Matthew in chapter 1. And I shall read in your hearing the familiar words of this portion of God's Word. Matthew 1 and verse 18.

4:35 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise. When his mother Mary, who had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, was found with child of the Holy Spirit, and Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privately, secretly. But when he thought on these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, you son of David, do not fear to take unto you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he it is that shall save his people from their sins.

5:27 Now all this is come to pass, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is being interpreted God with us. And Joseph arose from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and he took unto him his wife and knew her not, till she had brought forth a son, and he called his name Jesus. Now here in this particular passage we have a very simple, straightforward narrative that helps us to view the conception and subsequent birth of Jesus primarily through the eyes of Joseph.

6:19 In the birth account given to us in Luke's Gospel, we are given the privilege of viewing the conception and birth primarily through the eyes and through the experience of Mary. And there is no contradiction, but a wonderful complementarian relationship between them. We are, as I said, enabled particularly to see and to experience this event through the eyes and through that experience of Joseph in Matthew 1 and through the eyes and the experience of Mary in Luke chapter 1. But here in this passage we are given more than a simple, straightforward narrative concerning the conception and the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

History and Theology: The Dual Tracks of the Birth Narrative

7:11 tucked away in the folds of this particular simple, factual narrative. There we find unmistakable and clear answers to two profoundly important questions, namely, what is the precise identity, or who is this Jesus, the identity of this person, and what is the precise mission of Jesus, that is, why was he born? And to state the issue a different way, in these verses we are given the history of the birth of Jesus coupled with the theology of the birth of Jesus.

7:59 And here, as in the rest of the Bible, the theology is embedded in the history and the history has its God-intended purpose in the theology. As we pick up our Bibles, we are dealing with the stuff of real history. Events that really happened. People and places and time frames and stuff that could be touched and felt and smelled.

8:31 People that could be picked, pinched and punched and killed and stroked. We're not dealing with religious saga and religious myth, out of which we're supposed to draw down some spiritual significance. The Bible traffics in real, sure enough, history. However, that history has its intended end in its theology.

8:58 In other words, it is God's history with respect to what God is doing in dealing with the great issues of revealing Himself. Telling us what we are, who we are, why we are here, what is the fundamental problem that causes the human dilemma. How can that problem be resolved? So that we have the two tracks of history and theology.

9:28 The theology embedded in the history, and the history flowering into its God-intended significance in the theology. So if you sit here this morning and say, Oh, shucks, here I came to get a nice little Christmas devotional thing, and this dumb preacher tells me I'm going to get a big shovel full of theology. My friend, hear me. God never gave us the account of the birth of Jesus that we might have one time in the year when we feel a little more sentimental and sympathetic and generous and we all have a feel-good experience for a couple of weeks and then go back to business as usual.

10:09 God has given us this record of the birth of Jesus because this history oozes with the great and profound issues of theology. They are revelatory of God, who He is, what He is like, how he purposes to deal with man his creature. And so this morning we're going to seek to work our way through this passage under these two very simple headings. Number one, we're going to consider the unadorned historical narrative of the birth of Jesus from this passage.

The Unadorned Historical Narrative: Joseph's Dilemma and Divine Intervention

10:45 And then secondly, the profound theological realities contained in this narrative of the birth of Jesus. First of all, then, the unadorned historical narrative of the birth of Jesus. Verse 18.

11:03 The old American standard renders it, Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise. That's an old way of expressing what could be expressed being true to the original in words such as these.

11:18 This is how the birth of Jesus came about. New International Version. English Standard Version. Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place this way.

11:32 The Albert N. Martin paraphrase in 20th century Americanese, with respect to the birth of Jesus, I'm going to tell it like it is.

11:44 Now concerning the birth of Jesus, this is what happened. That's how Matthew introduces this section. I'm going to give you unadorned, unembellished, simple, straightforward narrative. This is a narrative of how the birth of Jesus came about.

12:08 These words apprise us of the fact that we are receiving such a simple narrative of God's revelation, of God's work in God's world, in real space-time history with real people. Now, what are those facts? Well, tighten your seatbelt, and we're just going to make a quick walk through the narrative, verse by verse. Verse 18a, the birth of Jesus Christ happened in this way.

12:35 When, adverb of time, at a specific period in time, when his mother, Mary, had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. What does this narrative at this point tell us? It tells us that a man named Joseph and a woman named Mary inhabitants in northern Palestine in a town called Nazareth. We saw that in the reading in Luke chapter 1.

13:05 They were betrothed one to another. Now betrothal in that culture at that time was something just short of marriage, but it was something far more than mere engagement. The betrothal in that culture was a legally witnessed, legally binding commitment that took, as it were, the first three steps into being married.

13:31 The couple did not yet live under the same roof and have sexual intimacy. At a time subsequent to, and there is no specified thing in secular history, nothing in biblical Old Testament law or in New Testament narrative to indicate how long, but sometimes subsequent to the betrothal, far more than engagement, which in our culture should not be broken with impunity, should not be entered into carelessly, but certainly can be broken without writing out a bill of divorcement, certainly does not regard the person who breaks an engagement as a divorcee, but this betrothal was far more than that. And Mary and Joseph are betrothed, and somewhere into that period of betrothal, before Joseph had taken Mary into his own house and had begun to live with her in the normal marital intimacy of a husband and wife, she is discovered to be pregnant.

14:33 When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, and that can mean before they began to live under the same roof, literally, physically, before they came together in the sexual intimacy that would have been appropriate for that final step in the marriage, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. She is discovered by Joseph to be pregnant. Pregnant not by some abusive Roman soldier, not because she was a loose woman who had an affair with someone other than Joseph, but by the impregnating supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit. We read about that in Luke chapter 1.

15:18 Now then, we are told in verse 19, And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. We learn that this man Joseph was a righteous man. And when that terminology is used here in the early chapters of Matthew and used again in Luke, it doesn't mean a self-righteous prig. It means someone who had come to know God in Old Testament framework in a saving way.

15:52 He was justified in the sight of God based on the sacrifice that Jesus was yet to accomplish, but who in the reckoning of God is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And as a person declared righteous, he had a new heart, was walking in the way of righteousness as what we would call an Old Testament saint. So Joseph, being a righteous man, a righteous man who loves God and loves his neighbor as himself, has certain options before him according to Old Testament judicial law. If you're interested in such things you can read about it in Deuteronomy chapter 23 If while a man is betrothed his wife should be unfaithful it was akin to adultery she was to be stoned along with the man that had sexual relations with her

16:47 On the other hand, if she was raped or seduced against her will, then he could write out a bill of divorcement and he could sever that commitment. Now Joseph is wrestling with what he should do. On the one hand, he does not know that Mary has been impregnated by the supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit. Whether she has told him and tried to persuade him, and he's just not been able to lay hold of it and believe it, we don't know.

17:18 Or whether she was silent about it. One thing is clear, as a righteous man, not as a vindictive man trying to get even because she was unfaithful to it. It's hard to get inside and know exactly what was going on in the mind of Joseph. But this much we are told.

17:37 Being a righteous man wanting to love God and uphold the moral standards of God, he feels he cannot let this issue go and simply go on with the marriage and do a cover-up job. like what we would call in our day a shotgun wedding. A guy gets a gal pregnant and so they have a quickly arranged marriage and hope nobody can count the months till she has the child. Joseph says, no, that would not be righteous.

18:02 That would not honor the sacred institution of marriage. It would indicate that in that cultural setting, I'd been shacking up with her before I took her to my home. I'd been jumping the gun.

18:15 She said, I can't do that. On the other hand, everything I know about Mary, it's so hard for me to believe that all that I thought she was has suddenly just been thrown to the winds and have no vindictive spirit toward her. I do have an option. I can write out a bill of divorcement.

18:33 I can divorce myself from her. It doesn't even have to be a public deed. And I can put her away privately, bring the least amount of shame to Mary. That's what the text is telling us.

18:45 Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man, not willing to make her a public example, was minded. That is, he was of a will. That's the sense of the verb. He was already about 99 and 44, 100% decided what he was going to do.

19:01 But like any righteous man who knows the proverb, he that makes haste with his feet sins, he didn't just jump the gun. He said, no, let me just let this percolate a little bit. So he's off to sleep. And as he's drifting in and out of sleep, the text says, look at verse 20, but when he thought on these things, and the verb there is a compound verb, has the sense, while he's going, having a mental wrestling match.

19:27 You know what that is? You're lying in bed, Lord, should I do this? No, no. And you play advocate against yourself and back and forth and wrestling and chewing the thing over.

19:35 That's what righteous men do. They don't shoot from the hip. They don't shoot, name later. Righteous men seek to weigh all of the biblical principles.

19:44 Which one has the most weight here? Which one here? Which involved? They think comprehensively, holistically.

19:51 They pray. They reflect. That's what Joseph is doing. You get the picture?

The Angel's Revelation to Joseph and His Obedience

19:56 And in this turbulent state of mind about fully decided what to do, but not yet fully decided, he drifts off into sleep. And while he's sleeping, an angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream. Now this is not some kind of a wild dream you get when you eat too much sauerkraut mixed with pickles or whatever else. This was a revelatory act of God.

20:18 When you read in the scriptures that God appears by an angel in a dream, whether in the Old or the New Testament, this is a revelatory act of God. Heaven breaks in to Joseph's pitiful sleep. Heaven comes down to earth in the person of an angelic messenger. And this messenger says to Joseph, verse 20, Joseph, notice how he addresses him, Joseph, son of David.

20:47 Now, why in the world did the angel address him, son of David?

20:55 Surely Joseph knew his lineage, it's laid out here in this earlier part of Matthew 1. He knew that he was in the line of David. And why does the angel say when he's about to speak to him, Joseph, son of David, reminding him of his lineage and of his heritage? Well, Lensky, the Lutheran commentator, I believe, gives us the answer to that question.

21:23 Matthew's genealogy has shown Joseph to be a descendant of the royal house of David, so also was Mary. This fact is here made the basis of an appeal to Joseph on this most important occasion to prove himself a true son of David, a man who has the messianic faith of his father David since the promise made to David was now about to be fulfilled. God's promise to David was that of his seed, he would raise up one to sit upon his throne. That promise to David, now about to be fulfilled, the angel says to Joseph,

22:09 Son of David, this now regards Joseph as a prince, and princely things were expected of him to be a protector of the very prince of heaven itself. Men love great names, but so often fail to live up to them. Son of David is your name, Joseph. Be what you are.

22:33 Be a true son of David, not only in terms of his bloodlines that are in you, but in his spiritual perception of anticipation of the coming Messiah and David's passionate yearning for the coming of that day. Joseph of Nazareth, son of David. David's son is going to be born of your wife, Mary. Therefore, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take unto you notice, Mary, your wife.

23:08 And if you have a version that says to be your wife, that's putting something up. She's regarded as his wife. He's regarded as her husband. That's the language used because betrothal had that sense.

23:20 you're already married. He said, don't be afraid to take unto you. That is, take her to your home as your fully legitimate wife. Don't be afraid to take unto you marry your wife for.

23:35 And then the announcement is made to Joseph. That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And without any indication that Joseph's...

23:46 Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute, angel. Say that again. She's conceived by the ages.

23:53 It doesn't work that way. Wait a minute. Explain a little more to me. No.

23:58 No indication. Joseph opens his big mouth and begins to debate with the angel and tell him he hasn't got it all right or explain some more. He just can't take it on his word. Who are you?

24:08 Just a messenger of God? I want more than that. No. The angel then, with no objections from Joseph, goes on to say, She shall bring forth a son.

24:17 Now, Pastor Jay knew he was going to have a son. Not because an angel told him, but an ultrasound told him. There were no ultrasounds in that day. So you had to wait until that first cry before you knew, boy or girl.

24:34 Joseph knows, I'm going to have a son. Furthermore, Joseph knows what he should call him, what his name should be, and you shall call his name Jesus. Now, the narrative ends at that point. so far as it goes.

24:47 And then it picks up again at verse 24. And Joseph arose from his sleep. Beautiful simplicity. He did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, took unto him his wife, knew her not till she had brought forth a son, and he called his name Jesus.

25:05 See all the verbs of action. Joseph arose from his sleep. And he began to question. No.

25:13 and he did as the angel of the Lord commanded. And what did that mean? He took unto him his wife. He said, Mary, you and I are going to my house.

25:24 We're going to complete this whole process from betrothal to consummated marriage. You're going to live under my roof. Mary, you'll not be let loose with the divorce paper, with the shadow hanging over you that somehow the rumors about a Roman soldier, The rumors about the guy down the street are true. Mary, I will show by spreading over you the canopy of my name and my honor that you're an honorable woman.

25:53 Let people say what they will. Mary, you know and I know your honor is unsullied and unstained. So he takes unto him Mary, his wife, yet, and here's noble Joseph. He has no sexual intimacy with her until after.

26:11 The child is born. She goes through her period of purification according to Jewish law. Why? Not because sexual relations with a woman who is pregnant in marriage are sinful.

26:24 No. It's a Romish notion that if procreation is not possible, intercourse is somehow less than honorable. That's nonsense. But you don't need to have a lawyer's mind to figure out that if the testimony to the virgin conception of Jesus was to be unassailable by the people who knew most next to God, Joseph would be able to look anyone in the eye and say, I had no intercourse with that woman.

26:54 not like Slick Willie and his devil talk, but a righteous man who speaks the truth and could say, Mary was impregnated by God the Holy Spirit and not by me. Think of the self-control. Think of the grace of loving patience. How about you men?

27:23 Have you been Joseph? think, put your head where his was.

27:30 But the scripture tells us he knew her not. He voluntarily restrained from normal natural God-honoring sexual intimacy until she brought forth her son. And he did what he was told. There was no sitting around saying, now Mary, how do you think we'll name it? Mary had already been told he shall be called Jesus.

27:53 Joseph was told, you shall call him Jesus. And there was no debate on Mary's part. God had spoken to her. God had spoken to Joseph.

28:02 The child was born and was named Jesus. Now, that's telling it like it is. That's what happened. Straightforward, simple, unembellished, unadorned narrative.

The Reality of Biblical History

28:15 Right? Nothing big deal about it. This is the way the birth of Jesus was. So we've considered, under my first heading, the simple, straightforward, unadorned narrative of the facts concerning the birth of Jesus.

28:31 And I underscore again, and some of you may wonder, Pastor, you're beating it thin at the edges. I've got a reason for beating it thin at the edges. When I do it, you know I have a reason for it. This is not religious myth.

28:42 This is not some kind of a Lord of the Rings that you're supposed to find the meaning that has spiritual implications. No, no, this is real stuff history. All right? Every bit of it.

28:56 There was a real betrothal. And there was a real pregnancy. And there was real bewilderment. And a real sleep.

29:02 And a real dream. And a real angel. And a real word from God. And a real taking her to his own home.

29:09 And a real restraining of himself in terms of his intimacy with Mary. And a real bringing forth of a firstborn son. And a real naming of him, Jesus. Now, what does all this mean?

The Profound Theological Realities: Identity and Mission

29:23 So we come to my second heading, the profound theological realities contained within this unadorned historical narrative of the birth of Jesus. And what are these realities? Well, the passage highlights two of them. The two I mentioned in our introduction.

29:42 folded up in this passage, encapsulated in this passage, God answers these two burning questions. Who is this Jesus born of Mary? What is the true identity of His person? And secondly, why was He born of Mary?

30:04 What is the precise identity of the mission of Jesus? And you see, just as the Bible gives us no liberty to dabble with and to alter and change the history, it gives us no liberty to change or dabble with or alter the theology. It's God's history giving birth to God's theology. And historically, the devil will peck away at one or the other.

30:33 He knows if he can undermine people's confidence in the historicity of biblical narrative, he will eventually get them to give up the theology, which gives birth to the narrative. Or sometimes he gets people to question the theology, so that when they question the theology, they see no necessity for the history, and then they jettison the history. And therefore, as biblical Christians, we hold tenaciously to the history and to the theology, for they stand or they fall together. And here I say in this passage, we have the profound theology that addresses these two crucial questions.

The True Identity of Jesus: Emmanuel, God With Us

31:14 What is the true identity of Jesus? And what is the true mission of Jesus? Now let's take up the first, the true identity of the person of Jesus, verses 22 and 23. Having written what he wrote, and this is probably Matthew's comment and not that of the angel.

31:34 Now, here's a wrap-up. All this has come to pass in order that this all came to pass with a specific end in view, an end appointed and designated and realized by the activity of God in ordering all this real history just the way it is and just the way Matthew has recorded it for us, all this has come to pass in order that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son

32:20 and they shall call his name Immanuel, which is being interpreted, God with us. All of these facts have come to pass this way and precisely this way in order that an ancient prophecy might be fulfilled. And what was that prophecy? It is found in Isaiah chapter 7.

32:43 And it is found in the context in which a wicked king, King Ahaz of Judah, had turned from the Lord and sought help from the heathen king of Assyria. God had said, look, King Ahaz, I'll be your helper. Why do you need to go to the Assyrian for help? I'll be your helper.

33:01 And when he was told by the prophet, Ahaz was told to ask a sign of God. You know what he piously did? He said, oh, no, no, I'm too spiritual to ask a sign of God. It was a wretched sign of his indifference to his God place And in response to that with a strong rebuke Isaiah told Ahaz God himself would give him a sign namely this sign that a virgin should conceive and bear a son whose name would be called Emmanuel. This sign meant to Ahaz that no helper would arise from the perverted house of David as represented by him and the other wicked male descendants that came from him and all the following generations would perish, that help

33:51 would come from this unnamed virgin, the great divine helper Emmanuel, would be born. That's what God said in that setting 800 years before. God was envisioning Nazareth Mary Joseph the fullness of the times had come Galatians chapter 4 and all that we have read of this narrative is intended that God might fulfill the word he gave through the prophet Isaiah 800 years before that an unnamed virgin would conceive And she would bring forth a son, and that son would be given a name, Emmanuel.

34:42 Now I remind you, as you've been told many times, that naming in the Hebrew setting was more than giving a convenient, a sentimental, or some other associational verbal tag. Naming meant that one was identified as to his person, his position, his office, his character, his function, some unusual historical circumstance in which he was born. Your name, in a sense, exegeted who you were. Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, supplanter, heel snatcher, wily old Jacob.

35:19 But your name shall be called what? Israel, prince with God. because you have prevailed. You've been heel snatcher.

35:27 Jacob, that's your name? That's what you are. That's your character. But now that you've wrestled and the God of the covenant has subdued you and you are now prince with God, your name is changed.

35:38 It's no longer Jacob. It's Israel. Abram shall be changed to Abraham, father of many nations. Sarai to Sarah.

35:49 All the way through the Scriptures. So when God had said in that ancient prophecy A virgin shall conceive. And the virgin's son born shall be given this name. This name, that is, this interpreted king to his true identity.

36:10 His name shall be Emmanuel, which means God is with us. in the literal rendering of the Greek construction here in Matthew chapter 1. Emmanuel, which is being interpreted, with us, the God. That Son born of the Virgin is with us, the very God of heaven and earth.

36:40 With us. He's born. He's the Son given. He's the child born.

36:46 There is true, essential, real, undiminished humanity. But in that real, undiminished humanity, the son born, the child given, is none other than God with us. Jehovah enfleshed in Mary's baby. And here we are given, I say, the true identity of the person of Jesus.

37:12 bound up in that name, that name that was assigned to him hundreds of years before. And now it has come to pass in order that that ancient promise of God would be fulfilled. Jesus, the conceived child, the son born, is nothing less than God with us. Not merely God with us in the promises of His presence.

37:43 Not merely God with us in the covenant commitment of His nearness to His people. But God with us by real, mysterious, but tangible enfleshment of deity. And that's what the rest of the Bible teaches us. John chapter 1, in the beginning was the Word.

38:04 And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. And that one with God, yet God Himself.

38:17 We read in verse 14, the Word became flesh. The Word did not cease to be all He ever had been. Himself God. But He becomes flesh.

38:29 He begins to be what He never had been. He takes to Himself true humanity, a true human soul, a rational soul, and a true human body, so that when the Spirit of God impregnates Mary in the wonder of it, to say it with words borders on the one hand between one thinks something short of almost blasphemous, and yet on the other hand sacrilegious that one cannot begin to express the wonder of it. there in Mary's womb when the son born and the child given is just a divided zygote, that's God joined to the zygote.

39:16 God joined to a zygote.

39:20 And in those opening weeks as the cells multiply so quickly and in a matter of a few weeks little fingers and little flippers and a little heart begins to beat, That's God with us. With us in the humiliation of the womb. Think about it, my friends. Get your mind off the tinsel and the trappings of the season and let your mind do what it was given by God to do.

39:49 Think His thoughts after Him. Let your mind feel the pressure, the explosive pressure of this Emmanuel, God with us. So much with us that God comes to a womb.

40:06 Something Adam never experienced. Adam came to us from the dust of the earth created by the hand of God into which God breathed the breath of life. But when the God-man comes, he comes not by direct creation from heaven, but by taking to himself of the substance of Mary and Mary's womb. Through humanity.

40:32 That's who He is. That's who He is. He is God with us. Emmanuel with us.

40:42 The very God of heaven. This is what Paul was attempting to describe in Philippians 2. Let this mind be in you. It was also in Christ Jesus who, existing in the form of God, thought it not a thing to be grasped, to be equal with God, but emptied himself taking.

41:01 What one man of God called subtraction, subtraction by addition. He emptied himself taking. He could not empty himself of deity. He would not be God of the very essence of what it is to be God, is to be the changeless one.

41:19 Nothing can be added to him to make him more glorious and more competent and more wise and more powerful. Nothing can be detracted from him, or he ceases to be God. So while the eternal Word continues to be all he ever has been, he divests himself of the accoutrements of the glory of heaven, the encourage of the millions of those perfect, sinless spirits that are enraptured by the sight of the non-incarnate Word. and he empties himself to the form of a servant.

41:58 That's his identity. He is God overall, Romans 9.5 tells us. And in 1 John 5.20, after John has said that in Jesus Christ there is life, he goes on to say, this is the true God and eternal life.

42:18 My little children, guard yourselves from idols. You know who is an idol? Any Jesus you pay homage to in the manger who is less than God that's an idol. Think of the crass idolatry across the world at this season.

42:35 Every immoral, vile, filthy pop singer, public entertainer, tipping his or her hat, or bearing her navel and shaking his hips for Jesus.

42:54 They don't acknowledge Him to be godless. to God who condemns their violence and who doesn't need their service to mention His name.

43:09 Think of the idolatry and so many of the Christmas cards and Christmas greetings to see in the manger anything other than what the hymn writer said veiled in flesh the Godhead see. Hail the incarnate Deity, pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel.

43:40 That's His identity. And wrapped up in this simple narrative is this profound theology. Who is the Redeemer of God's elect? Ask the shorter Catechism.

43:52 The only Redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who being the eternal Son of God, became man and so was and continues to be both God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever. That is our Jesus. that piercing cry. And little Lord Jesus, He cried as lustily as any baby.

44:23 Strike that out from one of your hymns. The cattle are lowing, the poor babe awakes, but little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes, now you all ought to be a corporate strooge and say, bah humbug. The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes, and little Lord Jesus, He cries his head off.

44:45 It's God with us! Us! Us criers! Us burpers!

44:54 And when he had a full snortful at Mary's breast, and she put him on the shoulder to burp him, or handed him over to Joseph, and he puked, it smelled like your kids smelled mine.

45:05 Don't you dosetize my Jesus. He is God with us! in our smelly infant puke, in our dirty diapers, in our piercing cries. He's with us.

45:19 I don't want a Jesus who when the cattle wake him doesn't cry. He's not with us. I don't want one who doesn't burp and who burp doesn't smell. And his puke doesn't smell.

45:29 I don't want a Jesus. He's not with me. He's not one of us. I want a Jesus who when you pick him, he bleeds.

45:36 When you pinch him, he jumps. When you grieve him, he cries. that's my Jesus he's with us and I don't want someone who's just with me I've got an awful lot of my kind all around who can't be in a looking good I'm one who brings to his work all the majesty and the purity and the power of deity he is God with us I don't know that to me could make a preacher out of anybody if you don't feel your soul swell and expand with wonder something's dead in you. Bad dead.

46:13 Rotten dead.

46:16 Veiled in flesh. The Godhead see. The piercing infant cries, the one who spoke the worlds into being, the one upheld by the Virgin's arms, supports the pillars of the earth, the one who governs the nations, is the one who's guarded by Joseph and Mary.

The True Mission of Jesus: To Save His People from Their Sins

46:38 Marvelous reality. would God we could stay before it until somehow our hearts burn but I must hasten on to the second and final point not only does this simple narrative set before us the profound theology of the identity of his person who is he? but then secondly we see in this passage the precise identity of the mission of Jesus for why did he come? why did he come?

47:06 look at the passage again verse 21 And she shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. For he it is that shall save his people from their sins. You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. For what purpose?

47:36 The virgin conception. For what purpose does he become Immanuel, God with us? Well, again, as the identity of this person is encapsulated in the name Immanuel, so the identity of his mission is encapsulated in another name divinely given. It is the name Jesus.

48:01 You shall call his name Jesus for. There's a reason for this. It's not just a verbal tag. That was a common name in Palestine at that time.

48:10 But he shall be given up. It shall be given to him for a distinct and unique and exclusive purpose.

48:19 Jesus. What does it mean? It's a Greek version of the Hebrew Yeshua, which means Jehovah is salvation, or Jehovah saves. So Joseph, you ought to give him this name.

48:35 you must give Him the name Jesus, for it is He who shall save, shall rescue, shall deliver His people from their sin. He's going to be a rescuer. He's going to be a deliverer. He's going to be one who releases, who takes from the worst of evils and brings to the greatest of good. However, lest there be any misunderstanding as to the nature of that salvation, the objects of that salvation look at the precision of the word of the angel to Joseph.

49:17 You shall call his name Jesus, not simply because he shall save. And I lead to you, Joseph, and the rest of the world to figure out from what he saves and who it is that he saves. No, no. He said, I want you to know that in giving him this name, Jesus, Jehovah saves. Jehovah is salvation. It is a distinct kind of salvation with respect to a specific issue, and it will be experienced by a distinct group of people He shall save from their sins The nature of the salvation he come to bring is salvation from sin He is not to be primarily or essentially a savior from social ills

50:07 from economic inequalities, from class distinctions, from racial prejudices, and from mutual exploitation of the poor. No, he is to save from the ugly, vile, wrath-deserving, moral pollution called sin. And I sat at my desk yesterday and I said, Man, oh man, Albert, if you want to get labeled as Scrooge incarnate, stand up on Christmas Sunday and use the three-letter word sin and say Christmas ain't nothing unless you understand how it relates to sin. sin.

50:50 He shall save from their sins.

50:56 Want to cause disruption? The next social setting you're in where people want to have the Christmas spirit? Raise your hand and say, folks, I'd like to ask a question. Anybody around here concerned about sin?

51:08 They say, yeah, the only thing we're concerned about is sin. How much can we do while we've got the season on us? And we can drink more than we could in other settings and still be regarded respectable. We can kiss more people under mistletoe.

51:19 If I tried to kiss someone else's wife with no mistletoe, I'd get slapped in the face or kicked in the britches or something. Oh yeah, sin, fine, yeah. That's not...

51:26 Let's say no, no. Do you understand what the manger scene says about sin? Until we make the connection, we don't understand the ABCs. Call His name Jesus for He shall save His people from their sins.

51:45 That poisonous stream that entered the human race through our first parents. For by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, for that all sinned. The origin of all sorrow, sickness, disease, and death, every broken heart, every tear-filled eye, every grieved and crushed spirit, every exploited man, woman, boy, girl, child, all of the evils and sadness, all comes from that open sluice gate of moral evil and turpitude called sin.

52:23 That's the mission of Jesus, to deal with this problem. And who are the objects of this salvation? Look at the text. For he shall save all and any from their sins?

52:35 No. He shall save his people from their sins. He shall actually rescue a specific identifiable group of men and women, boys and girls, from their sins. He will rescue them from the penalty of their sins, from the power of their sins, ultimately from the presence of their sins, and usher them into a new heavens and the new earth, purged from all the effects of sin.

53:09 And who will He do this for? His people. And when we interpret this in the light of the analogy of Scripture, those people are those who were given to Him by the Father before all time in the bosom of eternity, in the councils of eternal electing love and the laying out of the scheme of redemptive grace. Jesus could say in John 6, All that the Father gives to me shall come to me.

53:39 And him that comes to me I shall in no wise, I will in no wise cast out. Further on, Jesus said, I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. And it's as though someone said, well, Jesus, what is the will of him that sent you? Since you came down from heaven to do his will, what is it?

53:56 He says, I'll tell you. This is the will of Him that sent me, that of all that He has given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. I have a people given to me, and I'm not coming hoping to save them, merely providing a salvation that I hope they will cash in as their almighty will determines it's in their best interest to do so. No, I came down to so save them that I will raise them at the last day fully glorified, conformed to my image.

54:26 I came out of heaven to save my people from their sins. I came to save them. I came to save them by providing a righteousness that they do not have of their own. That's why I will place myself under the law and perfectly keep every requirement of that law.

54:47 that there may be a perfect record that can be credited to their account. For this reason, I will knowingly, deliberately put myself in the hands of my enemies and allow them in cooperation with the Roman government to impale me upon a cruel instrument of execution. I will allow and welcome the frown of my father and the outpouring of the billows of his wrath upon me, that there might be a just pardon extended to my people, that my Father's justice will remain untainted, His righteousness and holiness unsullied. I am prepared to live the life they should live, but did not live and die the death they deserve to die, but dare not.

55:32 I'm committed to save my people.

55:37 That's what His mission is all about. According to this birth narrative, The true identity is Emmanuel, God with us. The true purpose to save His people from their sins.

Personal Application: Adoration and Recognition of Sin

55:57 As I seek to bring this to a conclusion, and bring it home to the theater of everyone's conscience here this morning, let me ask you this morning, as you sit here and you heard perhaps a few little facts about the narrative you weren't aware of before. You weren't quite sure what this betrothal was and what the relationship between betrothal and marriage and why she's called his wife and why he had to put her away if he was off. You've got a few more facts. Fine.

56:26 Good. I hope that's been helpful. I tried to do my homework so I could make the passage simple, clear, be accurate in the mind of the Spirit in the passage. But my concern is not whether or not you've got a few more facts about the narrative that have been interesting, fascinating, helpful, fuel for thought.

56:45 What I ask you is this. Has the theology of the narrative been brought home to your heart by the power of the Holy Spirit? The theology that identifies this Jesus as to his true identity, God with us. Have the eyes of your soul, as I've tried to paint the picture from the Scriptures, as the eyes of your soul have looked into the manger, have you caught your breath?

57:17 And have you felt yourself inwardly falling down on your face, saying, O God, O God, who can fathom it? Emmanuel, God with us, Lord Jesus. Why, why would you give up all that was yours up there to come down to all the muck and the filth that would be yours because of me?

57:48 Do you feel yourself like Thomas after the resurrection and he's finally persuaded that it is his Lord who was crucified, risen from the dead? It says he falls down and he cries out, My God! My Lord! My God!

58:11 Not just, O God, O Lord, or even the God and the Lord. But he says, My Lord! My God! I asked you this morning, are your arms around the day in Bethlehem?

58:30 In an act of personal inward adoration and worship and love and affinity.

58:39 Paul said, if any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed of God. how can you behold the manger and realize that there is Emmanuel by way of being entombed in a womb for a full nine months God in a womb on his way to a cross as the Holy Spirit internalizes the eyes of your soul see him in the arms of your soul and praise Him.

59:19 That's not just preacher's blow. I'm asking you. Sitting here this morning, kids, is that where you're at?

59:28 Is that who you are? One who has beheld Him, Emmanuel. One whose heart has been ravished by Him. My Emmanuel.

59:39 Is the Spirit of God made real to you? This was his true mission. To save, to rescue from sin the greatest of all evils. My greatest evil.

59:52 My sin. Not my brothers, not my sisters, not somebody else's. No, no. My sin.

59:58 My perversity. My lies. My manipulativeness. My disobedience to mom and dad.

60:05 My selfishness. My lust. My greed. My pride.

60:10 My sin. Is that you? And you say, it's my sin. From the human perspective, without my sin, there need be no Emmanuel God with us.

60:24 My sin. My sin necessitated the enfleshment of God. My sin necessitated His living the life of a poor itinerant preacher. Misunderstood, maligned, called a bastard child.

60:41 That's what he was called. We be not born of fornication like you.

60:49 Spat upon. Mocked. Jeered. Puddled.

60:54 Crown of thorns upon his head. Hung on a cross and they still want more. They walk by and wag their heads and they jeer and they mock further.

61:07 Say all that for me. My sin. My sin, O Lord Jesus, to be rescued from that foul moral disease that caused you to bear all of this for the likes of me.

61:26 I'm asking, has the Holy Spirit shown you that such a Savior is exactly what you need for your problem of sin? nothing less than his perfect life and his substitutionary death could provide the righteousness which you need if you are to stand absolved in the last day nothing less than the sending forth of the spirit of the risen Christ to break the chains of your sin can liberate you into the freedom of the children of God nothing less than an exalted Christ interceding, securing and validating all the work that He did on earth that it might be brought to fruition in your life, ever living to make intercession that you and I might be saved

62:12 to the uttermost to the ultimate blessings of His saving grace.

Conclusion: True Truth and God With Us

62:20 Come around full circle to where we began this morning.

62:25 What do we have in this passage? Simple, straightforward, unadorned, unembellished narrative. It's true.

62:36 As Francis Schaeffer said, it's true truth. It's the stuff of real history. But it's the stuff of real history brought to us with God's own interpretation of its purpose. What's it all about?

62:52 All this has come to pass that it might be fulfilled. That we might have Emmanuel, God with us. that we might have Jesus, Savior, from sin. I close with the quaint little comments of Matthew Henry.

63:12 Blessed Matthew Henry. There are probably about 10, 15 saints that if God gives me any preference when I get to heaven, I want to see first and say thank you. And I don't know how disembodied spirits communicate. That's one of the things that I have to just lay to rest.

63:26 When I think about that, it gives me headaches.

63:30 If you've got any answers, you help me, all right? Because I have fewer headaches. I lie in my bed at night and sometimes I think, how am I going to recognize Matthew Henry? How am I going to recognize my dad?

63:40 I don't know how disembodied spirits recognize one another. Now, don't get distracted because of my crazy brain, but I'm sure I'm going to be able to recognize him. And I want to seek out Matthew Henry and thank him for a lot of things, but this is one of them. Matthew Henry said this, By the light of nature, we can see God above us as God.

64:03 The heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows His hand in her. By the light of nature, we see Him as God above us. By the light of the law, we see Him as God against us.

64:18 By the law comes the knowledge of sin. Whether we have the written law or the remains of the work of the law inscribed on our inner consciousness called conscience. The law condemns us. Nature tells us God is there.

64:30 He's above us. The law says He is there and He's against us. But then Matthew Henry says by the light of the Gospel we see Him as God with us. Emmanuel.

64:43 Jesus. The Savior of sinners. Let's pray.

Prayer for Spiritual Sight and Worship

64:53 Or, Father, when we read in your word that these are the things that angels desire to look into, we can begin to begin to understand why they are captured and fascinated. And we confess that if ever there were a time when we longed to reach in and, as it were, put expanders upon our brains and stretch them. It is when we try to contemplate this great mystery of how your beloved Son, without the relinquishment of anything that was essential to him as God, could take to himself our humanity. Oh, Lord Jesus, we worship you. We refuse

65:46 to worship idols. We refused, under the name of honoring you, to call you anything other than our Emmanuel, God with us. We say with Thomas, My Lord and my God. And we pray that in this place this morning, Lord, take away the blinders from men and women, boys and girls who've never seen one glint of glory in the face of Christ.

66:18 Oh God, break in upon their spiritual blindness. Give them spiritual light and sight and life that they may see and behold and beholding may trust and embrace and love and become one of those who has been captured by the beauty and the loveliness and the grace of your only begotten Son. Hear then our prayers and seal your word to our hearts we plead Amen