Let us read together two portions
from the New Testament. The first you will find in Luke's
Gospel and Chapter 1. Luke's Gospel and Chapter 1 and
commencing to read at verse 26. Here we are given the account
of the angel Gabriel visiting Mary and telling her that she
would be the mother of our Lord. Luke chapter 1 and verse 26 Luke 1 verse 26 And in the sixth
month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee
named Nazareth to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph
of the house of David and the Virgin's name was Mary. And the
angel came in unto her and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured,
the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was
troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation
this should be. And the angel said unto her,
Fear not Mary, for thou hast found favour with God. and behold
thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shalt
call his name Jesus he shall be great and shall be called
the son of the highest and the Lord God shall give unto him
the throne of his father David and he shall reign over the house
of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there shall be no end I want to now turn to Matthew's
Gospel, chapter 1. Matthew chapter 1, and commence
to read at verse 18. And here we're told that the
angels visit to Joseph, who tells Joseph that again his name shall
be Jesus, and gives a message as to what he would accomplish
by his visit. Matthew 1 and verse 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ
was on this wise, when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph,
before they came together she was found with child of the Holy
Ghost. Then Joseph, her husband, being
a just man and not willing to make her a public example, was
minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these
things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in
a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take
unto thee marry thy wife, for that which is conceived in her
is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son,
and thou shalt call his name Jesus. he shall save his people
from their sins. Now all this was done that it
might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet
saying behold a virgin shall be with child and shall bring
forth a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel which being
interpreted is God with us. Then Joseph, being raised from
sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took
unto him his wife, and knew her not till she had brought forth
her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus. May the Lord bless those readings
of his holy word. The Lord may graciously help
me, I turn your prayerful attention to Matthew's Gospel in chapter
1 Matthew chapter 1 and reading verse 21 for our text this morning
Matthew chapter 1 and verse 21 These are the words that the
angel spoke to Joseph reassuring him that that which was in Mary,
his wife, was of the Holy Ghost. Verse 21, And she shall bring
forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sins. And really those, particularly
those words, for he shall save his people from their sins, the
meaning of the word Jesus and the great work that he was to
accomplish. We've read together this morning
of two visits of the angel to Mary and then to Joseph, telling
Mary that she would be the mother of the Lord and that his name
would be called Jesus, exactly the same as was told to Joseph.
And yet there's quite a different emphasis, a focus on what's told
to Mary compared to what's told to Joseph, although they're both
perfectly, beautifully complementary. But if you look in what was told
in Luke 1 verse 32, we have the greatness of the Lord Jesus. He shall be great and shall be
called the Son of the Highest and the Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of his father David and he shall reign over
the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there shall be
no end. This shows the greatness of the
person of the Saviour. How exhausted he was. He was
the Son of the Highest and he was going to be on the throne
of his father David and there was going to be no end to his
kingdom. This is the greatness. And yet when we look at what
was said to Joseph in our text, that we're told that thou shalt
call his name Jesus, and here the focus is on his work. So we see the greatness of the
person, but that greatness of the person was not there just
for his own aggrandisation. He came with a mission of mercy. He came to do a great work. And you see all his greatness
that we read of in Luke chapter 1 was all necessary that there
would be this accomplishment of his work. The two things go
beautifully together and yet they are different aspects, this
great work. So as we look at this text in Matthew 1.21 For
he shall save his people from their sins. This was the work
that the Lord Jesus was come to do. He didn't have all that
greatness just for no purpose. He had that greatness and he
was going to use that greatness for the benefit and the blessing.
and the salvation of his church. So I want to look at seven points
regarding this simple and yet profound text about, for he shall
save his people from their sin. So first of all we notice that
the thing that was conceived in Mary was of the Holy Ghost
and later on in the same chapter we read that his name will be
called Emmanuel which being interpreted is God with us. So we see then firstly that he
was divine, he was God. Yes he came to be a man but he
was also, he had that divinity. His father was not Joseph, It
was that which was conceived was of the Holy Ghost. There
was a divinity with our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He
was divine and he was God with us. And the name Jesus means
Jehovah Salvation. And this is the great message
that there is salvation in no other. But then if we look secondly
at the exclusive nature of salvation. Exclusive. For he shall save
his people from their sins. There is a singularity here. He is the only one. He, there
is none other name given among men whereby we must be saved. This was the way. You see, if
something is very rare, it's precious, isn't it? If something
is very rare, we think of it as precious. But Jesus is not
only rare, he's unique. There is only one name given
among men whereby we must be saved. shall save his people
from their sins. And this is a great truth in
the word of God. There's not many ways. When there
was that flood coming, Noah was not told to build many arks and
then people could choose which ark they went in. There was one
ark, there was one door, there was one way of salvation from
the overwhelming flood and that was in the one ark. And so the
Lord Jesus Christ is that Ark, that saviour of his people. And
he alone, you see, was going to fight the battle and win it. We think of Samson, that one
who conquered so many times on behalf of Israel. Samson didn't
go out with an army. He always did it single-handedly.
And we think of that text, his own arm warts salvation. He did this work single-handedly. The Lord Jesus Christ didn't
come with an army to destroy Satan. He came in the person
of the Saviour. For he shall save his people
from their sins. No other. I am the way, the truth
and the life. There is an exclusive nature
of salvation centred in this one God-man, the man, Christ
Jesus. Then we see, also thirdly, we
see that the central reason for him coming for he shall save
his people from their sins. This was a central reason. You
might say but surely he came to show us how to walk and an
example of how we should live and he was that. But here we
have the central purpose of his coming. And you see this is so
important that it is about saving his people. And this you see
is why there is an unwelcome note in our text. You might say,
unwelcome? Well if you need to be saved,
then you must be lost. If somebody's been saved from
shipwreck, they were about to drown. If there's a lifeboat
that goes out and saves somebody, it's because they've come into
tremendous difficulty. And you see, as you see, you
might go, and we do it in the summer times, perhaps you go
in on holiday, and you go to these lifeboats that are surrounded
with all their, in their sheds, they all look beautiful and polished
up, and you can see all the greatness and the power of that lifeboat.
But you see, it's not just the museum piece. The purpose of
a lifeboat is to save lives. It's to go out in the rough stormy
seas. It's to risk the lives of those
on the lifeboat to save others. And you see the Lord Jesus Christ,
he came with all his greatness, the son of the father, sitting
on the throne of his father David, for a purpose. He came to save
his people. And therefore there's this unwelcome
note to those who are living in self-righteousness. And you
see, if you'd have said the message that the angel told Mary, all the Jewish leaders would
have totally agreed with this is the Messiah we want, he should
be great, he should sit on the throne of his father David, there
will be no end to his kingdom. Yes, they said this is the Messiah
we are waiting for, a Messiah to conquer the Roman Empire and
to give us back our sovereignty and to make us great again. This
is the Messiah we want, But in Matthew it tells us what
he really came to do. He came to save his people from
their sins. Not from the Roman Empire. Not
to vindicate those who were self-righteous as Saul of Tarsus, as touching
the Lord blameless. He came for his purpose of salvation. And you see, salvation is a beautiful
word and yet it's a word that shows us that we've got a problem.
We are sinners. And you see, the Jews for the
most part didn't think they needed such a saviour, they didn't want
such a saviour. You see they were touching the
Lord blameless as Paul tells us. That's how he saw it as a
Pharisee of the Pharisees. He didn't need somebody to stand
in his place. And so we see here the central
message and role of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is to
save his people. There are people that need saving.
There are people that are lost. And that's in a sense an unwelcome
message. You see, at this time of the
year we give presents to one another and you could give presents
to people that would be painful for them to receive. If you gave
mouthwash to somebody and the indication was that they've got
a problem with bad breath, you'd say that's a gift that's actually
painful to receive because it's telling me that something's not
right about myself. And you see this gift of the
Lord Jesus Christ is that there's a message in it that we need
such a saviour. We're lost. We're sinners. We're
rebels against God. We're far off from God. Why in
peace have they not known? There is no righteousness in
us. We are far off from God. So the
central message, and he shall save his people from their sins. So the central message, the central
purpose of his coming was salvation. It was to save his people. It
was for his people. And you see he came in love. They needed it. And you see by
nature they didn't realise they needed it. Saul of Tarsus didn't
realise he needed it until God shined on that Damascus road,
opened his eyes and then he suddenly realised that he needed mercy. So the central message is a saviour. He saves his people. And then
fourthly, he's a successful. You see, it says here, for he
shall save his people from their sins. There's no question about it.
It's not, you see, dear Moses who was that, foreshadowed the
Lord Jesus Christ, when there was that time when the The children
of Israel built that golden calf and worshipped that and said
these are the gods that brought you out of Egypt. Moses went
up and sought, and we read this in Exodus 32 verse 30, ye have
sinned a great sin and now I will go up unto the Lord peradventure. I will make an atonement for
your sin. I will endeavour, it will be
my desire to try and make an atonement for your sin. That's
what Moses said. But you see in this text it doesn't
say, and Jesus shall attempt to save you from your sin. For
he shall. There's a certainty you see,
there's a note of victory in this very text. victory, he shall. But all the hosts of hell are
against him, all these difficulties, all the troubles, all the religious
leaders are against him. For he shall save his people
from their sins. You see, there's a certainty.
This is God's work. As I mentioned in prayer, these
promises given to Abraham that a nice seed, all the kingdoms
of the earth will be blessed, was 2,000 years before. In this
first part of Matthew's Gospel, it gives the genealogies, these
14 generations it mentions, from Abraham to David, spanning 1,000
years. And then and how the Lord gave those promises
to Abraham and then they gave them to David. David was so concerned
to build a house for the Lord, wasn't he? He wasn't allowed
to. He wasn't allowed to build a house for the Lord because
Solomon was going to build it. But God turned it round and said,
you want to build me a house, I want to build you a house.
I want to make your house, the house of David, to be built forever. And it was so. It had an everlasting
kingdom, you see. This was foreshadowing that the
Lord Jesus would come from the line of David and he would have
a sure house, his house. And Jesus came, he said, I will
build my church, his people, you see. and how then this was
a successful saviour. He was going to do this. And then we think of the next
point that it's for specific people. For he shall save his
people from their sins. A specific people, a people that
the Father had given him. people that were chosen in God
before the foundation of the world. We read this in John 6,
for all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him
that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. You see, here
it's clear that there was a certain people that he came to save. And you might say, but how do
I know whether I'm amongst them? How do I know? Well you see,
it is election known by calling. And in Jeremiah we have those
beautiful words in Jeremiah 31 verse 3, the Lord has appeared
of old unto me saying, yea I have loved thee with an everlasting
love. But how do we know that? Therefore
with loving kindness have I drawn thee. So we know that he has
loved us with an everlasting love because he's drawn us. That's how we know. You see,
if we've not been drawn to the Saviour, we see no attraction
in Christ and his work and his breathlessness and the beauty
of holiness. If we see nothing in those things,
we've not been drawn yet. And if that's true of any here,
that there may be that desire, draw me. We will run after thee. to be drawn to the Saviour, to
be attracted to the great things of God and to be drawn away from
all that this world calls good and great, to be drawn to the
Saviour. Yea, I have loved thee with an
everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn
thee. For thou shalt call his name
Jesus, for he shall save his people, a specific people, a
chosen people, chosen before the foundation of the world,
given by the father to the son and then the son is coming to
redeem those people in love. and this desire that seek ye
the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is
near, and that desire that we be found amongst them, that you
see, come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, I
will give you rest. So many gospel encouragements
to come, to come to know this one for ourselves. And then sixthly,
I want to look at the fact that this text tells us that God is
merciful. For he shall save his people
from their sin. Sin is a rebellion against God. And he's going to save them from
that rebellion. Save them from all their shortcomings,
all their rebellion, all their hatred. He's going to save them
from the just reward of their ungodly deeds. You see when Joseph
in the Old Testament, in Genesis, was risen to that position of
authority and power, you see his His brothers were not neutral,
Benjamin excluded. All these other older brothers
were not neutral towards Joseph. They were not just not positive
and not negative. No, they actively planned and
schemed and worked against Joseph. They actively despised and rejected
Joseph. But what does Joseph do? He shows
him kindness and mercy. And you see here we have, for
he shall save his people from their sins. Joseph, in the Old
Testament, he saved all his family from famine, from death, because
of lack of food. He saved them. But they were
objects that were against him. They were his enemies, his traitors
and his foes. So he had mercy. And you see,
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is merciful. If he wasn't merciful,
he would never come on this mission of saving his people from their
sins. He's merciful. And you see, we
need to realise therefore, we need mercy ourselves. You've
heard me say it before, but there was an occasion when Napoleon,
he had an army, conquering so many people, and then there was
a soldier who stepped out of line and did something that would
be normally rewarded with death for doing. The mother of this
soldier came and travelled all the way to find Napoleon to seek
for mercy for her son, who was destined to destruction. And
she came to Napoleon and said, I've come to beg for mercy for
my son. And he said, your son doesn't
deserve mercy. To which she replied, if he deserved
it, It would not be mercy. You see, by definition, mercy
is undeserved. For he shall save his people
from their sin. They're not worthy. They're not
worthy of being saved. Joseph's brothers were not worthy
of the kindness that he showed them. And yet in love to them
he showed them that kindness and they realised then that everything
of their future depended upon the kindness and mercy and love
of Joseph towards them. For he shall save his people
from their sins. And then lastly I want to think
of It says here, from their sins. So we see here that it was not
just a case of being saved, but then carrying on in sin. They were to change. You see
that woman taken in adultery, who they brought to the Lord
Jesus and said, what shall we do with her? The law says that
she should be stoned, but what do you say? And you see he said,
he who is without sin cast the first stone. And they all went
away and their consciences smote them. And he said, neither do
I condemn thee, go and sin no more. You see we are not saved
to continuing sin, we are saved from their sins. Not to live
in them, in the dominion of them, in the fulfilment of them. God's
people are sadly still sinners. They still do come short. And
yet it's not their habitat. It's not what they want to be.
In their right mind they do not want to be walking in pride. They do not want to walk in the
lust of the flesh left to themselves. They want to walk in the ways
of God. For he shall save his people
from their sins. a great wonderful message of
salvation. You see in all that greatness
that we read of in Luke chapter 1, he shall be great and shall
be called the son of the highest and the Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of his father David. All that greatness was
to be used for the blessing of his people. Can you think of
that? I can think of that in the life
of Joseph in the Old Testament, in Genesis. when he got given,
he got in the position of the second in charge in Egypt. He could have said, look at me,
how great I am, and wanted himself to be lifted up in pride. He didn't. As soon as he was
given that position of authority, he was building storehouses. He was organising the whole land
that it would be able to cope with those years of famine. He
was using his power, authority and position for the salvation
naturally of that whole region. And you see this is a, look,
Joseph there was foreshadowing a greater than Joseph. Joseph
there was constantly in those seven years of plenty. He was
filling these storehouses for his traitors and his foes. Those
who couldn't stand him. They didn't want him. We will
not have anything to do with this man and his dreams. And
yet all the while they had no idea of how important he would
be. And all that position of authority
that he was given. He would use that for their good. And you see that is a picture
of our Saviour, His greatness. He doesn't use His greatness
to crush us as He could, and He will to His enemies ultimately.
But those that are in Christ, those who have fled for refuge
to lay hold upon the hope set before them in the Gospel, He
uses all His authority and power and ability to work out a righteousness
for them, that they could never work out themselves. The brothers of Joseph couldn't
keep themselves alive, could they? In that family they didn't
have seven years of goods, of food laid up in store, did they?
But you see Joseph, in his position of authority, he used his position
of authority for the blessing. And so we see the two sides.
Mary is told by the angel of the greatness of God, the greatness
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he shall sit on the throne of
his father David. But this is a servant king. He came to serve his people. Joseph, you see, in his high
position, he served. He was not idle, just relaxing,
fulfilling all his lusts and desires, was he? He was a person
who was diligent. And his whole work was about using his position to the blessing
of those that were under him. Think of that beautiful word
when Mordecai, in that time of Esther, he came to a position
of power after Haman was pushed to one side and hanged. Then
Mordecai was in that high position and he spoke good. to all the
Jews and spoke peace to them. You see, in his position of authority,
he used it for the good of his subjects. And this is a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. He was the one who came to serve. His greatness was not as it were
for himself but for the blessing of his people. Can you not see
a beauty in this? A beauty in the saviour, the
one who laid down his life, a ransom for many. Oh he is altogether
lovely. When we see the greatness and
yet how he humbled himself, made himself of no reputation. He
became subject to Mary and Joseph. And he did that so that he could
work out a righteousness for his people, who had no righteousness
of their own. And she shall bring forth a son,
and thou shalt call his name Jesus. For he shall save his
people from their sins. The divinity of Christ, the exclusive
nature, only he, his purpose coming for salvation. He was
a successful saver, he shall. for his people in mercy, and
to deliver them from the dominion of sin. They may not live any
longer that way, but they may be made, formed in the image
of Christ. May the Lord Jesus be precious
to us, for he shall save his people from their sins. Kind and gracious Lord God, we
thank Thee that we have such a Saviour, so humble and so kind
and so gracious and so merciful. And Lord, as we in this life
are called to follow Thee, may we take up our cross daily and
follow Thee. And Lord, that we might love
to serve, and Lord, love to seek not our own glory, for the glory
of our God. And Lord help us then to be thy
followers, those who have seen the beauty of Christ. and the
blessing of serving others rather than serving ourselves. And Lord
that we might live a life that brings glory to thy great name. Lord make us then all that we
ought to be, forgive our many sins and bless us each with that
knowledge of the Saviour, the knowledge of Christ which is
more precious than gold. And may the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Father's love, the fellowship of the Eternal
Spirit, be with and abide with us each, both now and for evermore,
for Christ's sake. Amen.