The book of the generation of
Jesus Christ. Now this is the first verse of
the first book of the New Testament. How does the Old Testament begin?
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Here
it begins with the generation of Jesus Christ. You see that?
The Bible is about the Lord Jesus Christ. The book of the generation
of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begat
Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judas and his
brethren. And Judas begat Phares and Zerah
of Tamar, and Phares begat Ezram, and Ezram begat Aram, and Aram
begat Amminadab, and Amminadab begat Naasson, and Naasson begat
Salmon, and Salmon begat Boaz of Rahab, and Boaz begat Obed
of Ruth, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David the king,
and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife
of Uriah, And Solomon begat Rehoboam, and Rehoboam begat Abiah, and
Abiah begat Asa, and Asa begat Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat
begat Joram, and Joram begat Ozias, and Ozias begat Joathim,
and Joathim begat Achaz, and Achaz begat Ezekias, and Ezekias
begat Manasseh, and Manasseh begat Ammon, and Ammon begat
Josias, and Josias begat Jeconias and his brethren about the time
they were carried away to Babylon. And after they were brought to
Babylon, Jeconias begat Salathiel, and Salathiel begat Zerubbabel,
and Zerubbabel begat Abiad, and Abiad begat Eliakim, and Eliakim
begat Azor, and Azor begat Zadok, and Zadok begat Achim, and Achim
begat Eliad, and Eliad begat Eleazar, and Eleazar begat Matan,
and Matan begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary,
of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ." So all the generations
from Abraham to David are 14 generations. And from David until
the carrying away into Babylon are 14 generations. And from
the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are 14 generations. 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 to him in a
dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto
thee Mary 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. For 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 Immanuel, 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. Now, as I mentioned last time,
the significance of this genealogy, at least at the most, has to
do with who the Lord Jesus Christ is in his humanity. He's the
son of David in his closest relationship in history, and David was the
son of Abraham. He was the son of Abraham, the
son of David and the son of Abraham. One of the things I see in this
history, this genealogy here, and what we're speaking about
today is the title of our message today is just one word. Jesus. Jesus. And that's a name that
is abused, in my opinion, when people name their children with
that name. I wish they wouldn't do that. When I was a kid growing
up, the first time I ever heard that, I was taken aback. I was
surprised that anyone would do that with this name. Because
to me, this name is a holy name. There's no doubt about it. It's
a holy name. But the title of our sermon today is Jesus, as
it says in Matthew 121 and other places. His name will be called
Jesus. But when we look at the genealogy
which comes first here, what we see is a few things. First
of all, there were several generations, 42 generations between Abraham
and the Lord Jesus Christ. And this reminds us of the length
of time that it was between the promise God made to Abraham that
his seed, through his seed, all the nations of the earth would
be blessed through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the Lord Jesus Christ
who is the seed of Abraham through whom all the nations would be
blessed. The length of time between that
promise and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ was significant. And really, it wasn't the first
time God made that promise. As you know, God made that promise
even to Eve. When Adam and Eve first sinned,
and God pronounced all of the things that was coming upon them,
the sorrow for Eve, the toil for Adam, and the curse of the
serpent, and in the midst of all that, those judgments, He
also said this, The serpent would be judged in this way, that the
seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent, and
the serpent would bruise his heel. That promise was fulfilled
when Jesus was born. The promise was that Christ would
come and that He would fulfill what God said. He would bruise
the head of the serpent. He would defeat the devil. He
would destroy the works of the devil, as it says in 1 John 3.8.
Christ would come. Think of the time, the amount
of time between the creation of the world and when the Lord
Jesus Christ came. Huge amount of years. I don't
know how many. I am curious, but it's not specifically
given in my estimation in scripture how many years there are. But
I know that there's approximately 2,000 years between Abraham and
Christ. And it doesn't have to be exact,
it's just I only give that to you to give you a sense for the
length of time. Israel was in Egypt 400 years,
430 years to the day it says they were brought out of Egypt.
That was a huge amount of time. I've been alive less than 60
years. We've been a nation for a little
over 200 years. I know hardly anything about
the history of the United States in the detail that is spoken
of here. No one does. When you read and study history
in the United States, there's a lot of information, but nothing
like the detail given here. Who begat who, and so on, right
to the very birth of the man, Jesus Christ. It wasn't given.
But here God draws it out in detail. And you've heard the
phrases that we sing in songs, the desire of nations has come. The long-awaited Christ has come. Think about what happened in
the garden. We fell into sin. We obeyed the voice of the serpent. We disobeyed God. We doubted
God and believed the serpent and we ate the forbidden fruit
in our father Adam and we fell in sin and we came under the
condemnation of death, eternal damnation and the devil. We came
under the subjugation of the devil so that we're deceived.
We can't know God. Our spiritual self died and we're
subject to eternal death. That's our condition. And if
we really felt that, if we really understood the guilt of our sin,
and who God is, and the sorrow that came to Adam and Eve when
they were expelled from the garden, And the anticipation that Eve
had when her first son Cain was born, and then her later son
Abel, and finally Seth, and so on. She was looking for that
son who would come. There was an anticipation. A
son is to be born. That son is going to bruise the
head of the serpent. He's going to undo. He's going
to restore us to what we lost in Adam. People lost sight of
that promise. People lost sight of what they
were. And sin, we acclimated to it.
We became so accustomed to it that sin was not an issue with
us. We accepted it. Everyone did
whatever was right in their own eyes. And the imaginations of
our heart were only evil continually. That's what it says in Genesis.
And then after the flood, God even told Noah, I'm not going
to destroy the world because the imagination of man is evil
from his youth. That's the way we are. Sin has
taken over. Where once there was nothing,
there was no sin, and there was fellowship and communion with
God, now sin has reigned. And sin reigns unto death because
the wages it pays is death. The payback for sin is death.
And that's what the promise had to do with, the undoing and the
restoration of what happened in Adam. But more than restoration,
as the gospel unfolds, it's more than just restoration. It's taking
these people who were the enemies of God and actually making them
God's friends, making them His sons and exalting them with His
own Son. But more on that another time.
the genealogy is given because it connects the Lord Jesus Christ
to David and to Abraham through all these generations. And it
teaches us several things. First of all, it teaches us the
faithfulness of God. that he would take such a long
time from his promise and actually fulfill it. And if you were experiencing,
if you could somehow live through those 42 generations and watch
every mother giving birth to that son named in this list,
wondering, is this the one? Is he going to be the one who
sits on David's throne and reigns over the house of Israel forever?
And no, disappointment would come over and over again. And
yet God is faithful. God worked through all of the
weakness and frailty of these people in this list. And the
people is not a list of noble people. It's not a list of noble
people. A lot of times people are interested
in their genealogies and they hope to find someone in their
genealogy famous. I'd like to find a president
or a great man in my genealogy. The Lord Jesus Christ was the
greatest of all. And look at His genealogy. It's
full of people who were sinners. For example, King Manasseh. Remember
Manasseh, the king? He reigned 52 years as king. For 50 years, he was the worst
king in Israel. By worst, I mean he put children
in the fire in sacrifice to idols. And he did so many things that
were so bad. He led Israel into deep, deep
sin. What a monster of iniquity! What
is he doing in this genealogy? And yet God had mercy on him
in the last two years of his life and saved him. Rahab, the
harlot, is here. Ruth, the Moabites. The Moabites
were the children of Lot by incest. And then Judah had a son through
Tamar. And that was also, he was thinking
she was a harlot, and she was actually his daughter-in-law. And so it was an incestuous relationship
in that way, too. All these things. And David.
What about David? Solomon was born, and he's in
the list. And he was the son of Uriah's
former wife, Bathsheba. whom David took to be his own
in an adulterous relationship and killed her husband." This
is not a list to be proud of in that way, in the light of
what these men were and what they did. These were troublous
times. If you read in the Old Testament,
beyond Jeconias and his brethren, the whole reign of kings was
totally wasted. It was a horrible into the kingdom
of Judah. It was the reason they were carried
away to Babylon is because the kings were apostate. And so that's
what you see here is a long list of sinners. And not only sinners,
but sinners who experienced the judgment of God for their sin.
Remember what happened? They were carried away to Babylon.
What was that? That was the punishment of God,
the chastisement of God, bringing the enemies of God's people on
them because of their departure from Him. And so you see the
sinfulness of them, and you see that they had been beaten up
by the consequences of their sin. Throughout history, before
Christ came, men were living under the trouble in their hearts
and the trouble outside of them, which was all due to their own
sin. Due to the evil king that ruled over them, this sin and
the devil and death and the world and everything that they were
under the control and bondage to. Just like Egypt, the people
in Israel were in bondage to Egypt all those years, and God
sent a Deliverer. That's what it was pointing to,
that God would send the Lord Jesus Christ, the Deliverer. And so you see that. Now, the
fact that Christ was born as the son of David is significant
because you know that David was the promised king. And I mentioned
this last time in the overview in Matthew. But David is the
king who God promised would come. And remember who David was? He
was the shepherd of Israel. What does the king do? He was
the shepherd of his people. What does the shepherd do? Well,
he watches over the sheep. He provides them food. He leads
them into green pastures. He leads them beside still waters.
He protects them from the enemies at night. These sheep are helpless. He provides for them. He does
everything for the sheep. That's what the king did. He
was the shepherd over his people. He wasn't like a king who takes
from the people, like Saul, and enriches himself from them. David
had a kingdom that was a shepherd king. And Christ is the good
shepherd, isn't He? He's the good shepherd. And He's
the king over His sheep. And not only that, but God gave
to David his throne over the house of Israel. And we read
it in the prophecies. He would be king over the house
of Israel forever. Whoever is under the kingship
of Christ as his people over which he shepherds, those are
the Israel of God. Those are the people of God.
So he's the one who was the son of David, promised to sit on
the throne over Israel, ruling in righteousness, God blessing
his people through him as their king, and he leading them and
protecting them, fighting the battles of the Lord, and gaining
triumph over them by his work. And that's what Christ did. He
did all those things for his people. And he's going to do
that spiritually, we're going to see as we go through Matthew.
But then he's also the son of Abraham. And as the son of Abraham,
he's the promised seed. Look at Galatians chapter 3.
Again, these are not unfamiliar texts of scripture. But we have
to refresh our memory because it says in these things, it teaches
us that the Lord Jesus, who we're reading about in Matthew, fulfilled
everything God wrote in the Old Testament. Look at Galatians
chapter 3. It says in verse 8, The scripture,
foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached
before the gospel to Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations
be blessed. And that's speaking of the Lord
Jesus. Look over at verse 16. He says, Now to Abraham and his
seed were the promises made. He saith not unto seeds, Plural,
as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. What is he saying there? He's
saying that the covenant God made with Abraham was, there's
a number of things. He's saying, first of all, the
blessings that God promised would come on all the nations of the
world were going to come through this seed, and that was Christ. Not only that, but the blessings
that would be given to those in the world, all the nations
of the world, were going to be given to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Look at verse 19. He says, Wherefore then serveth
the law? It was added because of transgressions,
till the seed should come to whom the promise was made. You see that? So, the promises
were given to Christ. The blessings that were given
Christ were for all nations to be blessed in Him. And not only
that, but the conditions that needed to be met for those blessings
to be given had to be fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ. He
stood as the covenant head of all His people. And this is taught
in Romans 5. We're not going to turn to that
now, but remember, in Adam we all we all stood before God. God gave His commandment to us
in Adam, and we fell in Adam. We disobeyed. In the Lord Jesus,
and all having fallen in Adam, sin came upon all, and death
because of sin. But in the Lord Jesus Christ,
all of His people stood in Him, and He acted as a head over them
in their place. So all that He did, God received
it, from Him in their name, and they did it in Him. Whatever
He did, they did. Whatever they did was counted
His, and He suffered for it. He was their surety. All their
debts were laid on Him. All the requirements were laid
on Him. And He paid the debt and met the requirements and
gave those to God in order to secure to God His people by fulfilling
that covenant and also in order to secure the blessings from
God to His people by fulfilling that covenant. Both ways are
in view when God says surety. A surety like to Jacob, Judah
was a surety for Benjamin so that Benjamin would be brought
back to Jacob. But also, Judah stood as a surety
for Benjamin before Joseph in order to stand in his place.
Both of those are a view. Christ is the head of the covenant.
He met all the conditions of it. All the blessings of the
covenant are given to him. Our inheritance is in Christ. The Jews trusted that their inheritance
was because they were related to Abraham. Strangely enough,
they kept these records and genealogies thinking that it was because
they needed to tie themselves back to Abraham physically through
the bloodline. If they could trace their heritage
back to Abraham, it would prove they were the sons of God. And
look, I'm circumcised, so I have to be a son of Abraham. Those
two things. I'm circumcised, I'm related
to Abraham, I'm in the Kingdom of God. And the big revelation
that came in the Gospels is, no, no, that makes no difference.
Bloodline makes no difference. It's not of blood. It's not of
the will of the flesh. It's not of the will of man.
It's of God. It's neither of your relationship
to Abraham or David through a bloodline, nor is it of any action of your
flesh, such as circumcision, nor is it of your own volition
to become a son of God. It's of God. You have to be born
of God. And that was the revelation that
came clearly in the New Testament in light of this. So even though
they trusted to their genealogies and kept the records of their
genealogies, the reason God kept those records was for the full
purpose of showing that Christ would come and fulfill His promises.
This is so important, and we lose sight of the importance
of this. The importance of the fact that we were separated from
God in the sin of Adam, and there's not any connection to that promise
until Christ comes. The fulfillment of it never came
until Christ was born. So that all that we lost in Adam,
the hope that all that we lost in Adam would be restored, was
not fulfilled until Christ came. How significant is that? It's
everything. We are born into this world dying,
and we're born not only physically dying, but dead to God, spiritually
dead. The only way we can be raised
from the dead spiritually and kept from eternal death is through
the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one God promised, the one
who would come. So the promises of God are so
significant. Those who understood the significance
of it, their guilt before God, and the fact that they were under
the wrath of God, and justly so. and separated from Him outside
the blessings of God. They knew that they needed a
Savior, and so they looked for the promise to be fulfilled.
And they were interested in this, and they kept genealogies of
this, looking for Christ to come. It was promised by the prophets
and foreshadowed in all the law in the Old Testament. And finally,
He does come. But strangely, and here's the
irony of it, again I mentioned this last week, is that their
hope in their genealogy, in their relationship to Abraham, actually
became for them a stumbling block. Because The one who fulfilled
those genealogies, the one reason for why those genealogies were
kept, the one who fulfilled it, it was proven by the genealogies
that Jesus was the Christ. That he was the son of Abraham,
the son of David. And they rejected Christ. So
the whole purpose, all, think of the thousands of years over
which they kept these genealogies. And all the long lists, who knows
how many volumes they occupied, making sure you track down who
was the mom, who was the dad, and all the way back. And they
had to have these records, and somehow they kept them through
even the Babylonish and other kinds of calamities. They were
all there in order to prove that Christ fulfilled God's Word.
God keeps His Word. And the reason that this is given
to us is because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the
Word of God. God says, I will do a thing,
and He does that thing. He's the one who said it, and
He's the one who brings it to pass. Who else could do it but
God Himself to bring this? So, the other thing that this
teaches us here is what we're going to see in a few moments,
and that is that these people were sinners. weren't they? They were sinners, and it's a
sad thing. When Jesus came into the earth,
the nation of Israel was under the domination of the Roman Empire. Another king, a heathen king,
ruled over them, and they were subject to him. Not only that,
were they under the dominion of a heathen king, but there
in the nation themselves, there was fighting. There was religious
factions, and they were always squabbling over insignificant
things. Some of them were significant.
Is there a resurrection or not? There were the Sadducees that
said no. The Pharisees said yes. And the Pharisees went on and
on about all the rules and stuff. There was constant activity and
strife between these people over insignificant religious things,
and they didn't even understand the Gospel. Didn't understand
God. Didn't understand His Son. Didn't understand the purpose
of God's, why God created the world. They didn't understand
anything, and they were in a mess. And it was reflected by their
domination by Rome, but also by the fact that they were under
the possession of devils. The devils seemed like they were
controlling men all over the place. Even their children were
possessed by devils. And they couldn't do anything
about it. And they were diseased. The people were poor. They had
suffered under the tyranny of hundreds, centuries, under the
tyranny of the result of their own sin. All the trouble that
came upon them was the result of their sin. The sin of their
fathers. Their own sin. Thousands of,
hundreds and thousands of years even. They had been gone in and
out. Can you read the book of Judges
and not see this? In and out. Every man did what was right
in his own eyes. God delivered them to their enemies. They cried
to the Lord. God sent them a deliverer. And
He delivered them over and over again. That's the story of the
Old Testament. God delivering these people, these stubborn,
stiff-necked, stupid, ignorant, sinful people just like us. And so Christ comes in this very
genealogy. The genealogy would think, these
are the people who rejected God over and over again, who served
idols. Even after they came out of Egypt, they were there at
the base of the mountain making idols and serving them and saying,
these be thy gods, O Israel. What a hard-headed, knuckle-headed,
unbelieving group of people. And that's why it's significant
here that Jesus came to save his people from their sins. Don't
you see it? He came to save his people from
their sins. And now we see here in verse
18 that 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. The seed of the woman,
there it is. The woman had no, the woman,
how is a woman have children? through a man. There's the seed
of the man joined to the woman, and there's the fruit of the
womb. And God, from the beginning, made it this way. He made them
male and female. For what purpose? That the woman
would receive that precious seed of the man, in order that she
might bear fruit to God. That was the purpose. It was
so that the woman would receive the man's seed and bear the fruit,
which hopefully would be the Lord Jesus Christ. And God would
bless that fruit in bringing out His purpose in the world.
And we see that physically between Adam and Eve and all that followed.
The reason God created man and woman is so that He could bring
His purpose in the earth and fulfill that purpose in His people.
And you see that physically. People can't have babies without
a man and a woman. It just doesn't happen. And the
purpose for people being on the earth was to bring forth, to
multiply and to replenish the earth to bring forth this seed,
this precious seed which would point to the Lord Jesus Christ.
But in a spiritual sense, something much more significant was there.
Because not only did Adam and Eve teach us that God made them
male and female in order to bring forth and multiply on the earth
and to bring forth his fruit to God, but the Lord Jesus Christ
is the husband of his people. And His people represent the
woman in Scripture. They're called the Bride of Christ,
the Wife of the Lamb in Scripture, the Church. And the Lord Jesus
Christ is the one who gives His seed, which is the Gospel to
them, which they cherish. And with that seed, they take
it into all the world. And guess what happens? There's
fruit brought forth to God. The sons of God are brought forth
and created. And the daughters of God, they're
brought forth from that union between Christ and His people
and the seed He gives them, which is the gospel. And that's brought
throughout the world to the purpose of God. To build His church and
to glorify Himself in His church. And that's a different overlay
here. But here what you see is that
the woman here receives the seed of the Holy Ghost. And physically,
Mary, she had never known man. And so what was born from her
was entirely supernatural. It was of God. Jesus was not
born to a man. He was born to a woman. And His
Father was God. But He was born, in a physical
sense, as a man. But in a spiritual sense, as
God, He was never born. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Son of God. We read it in Matthew chapter
1. He shall be called the Son of the Highest, the Son of God. And here in verse 23 it says,
He is Immanuel, God, with us. He's the Son of God, He is God. But He's the Son of the Virgin.
He's the Son of David through her. And He's the Son of Abraham. He was born as a man, but He
always existed as God. Look at 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy. This is a great mystery, isn't
it? It says so. I wouldn't have used those words
myself, but we ought to be stupefied by this mystery. He says in 1
Timothy 3, without controversy, verse 16, without controversy,
great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. This is 1 Timothy 3.16. God was
manifest in the flesh. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
God was manifest in the flesh. Do you see that? Oh, how people
want to deny the deity of Christ. I was surprised as a child growing
up in the church that people would try to do that. And then
later I thought, well, how do I know that Jesus is God? And
I had to search it out myself. The scripture is very plain on
this. Only deliberate wickedness would try to suppress the clear
revelation of scripture that Jesus is God. Someone said it
this way. He was born as a man, but he
always existed as God. Why was he born? Why did he come
to this earth? To save his people from their
sins. How did he do that? Through his death. And someone
said it this way. God could not die. God can't
change. He's eternal. And man could not
satisfy. Man could never meet God's holy
law in the extent that it needed to be met to satisfy His justice
in His death and to fulfill its requirements in His obedience.
But the God-man could both die and satisfy. And now, whether
that's not a quotation from Scripture, but I thought it's a helpful
way of keeping it in our mind. The Lord Jesus Christ was born
of Mary, not of a man, because man was under sin. If he would have been born of
a man, he would have received from Adam a sinful nature. That
shows us how we receive our sinful nature. It's from our Father.
It's from Adam, ultimately. And some people think, well,
you know, my dad was a good guy. Well, just keep going back a
few years, and you'll find out that your dad wasn't a good guy.
Adam wasn't a good guy. He was a sinner. And if you're
a good guy, then you don't need a Savior, and you're without
hope and without God in the world. But we receive our sinful nature
from our Father. The Lord Jesus Christ had no
sinful nature. He was born of God. He was born
of the Spirit of God. And this is a great mystery,
how God could become a man. People wonder about lots of mysteries
in the Bible. How could there be a resurrection?
There's a greater mystery than that. How could God become man
and remain God and be man? Why would He do that? That may even be a greater mystery
still. Why would God do that? And we're
going to see more of that later. But this is a great mystery. But it's a truth. And God reveals
it. You know what? I believe it. I believe that
Jesus was born of a virgin. That the Lord Jesus Christ was
born not from man, but He was born of a woman. And the Spirit
of God implanted in Mary, conceived in Mary, the Lord Jesus Christ
in His human nature. Look at Hebrews chapter 10. These aren't things that even
heretics deny. A lot of heretics do, but there
are heretics who still agree with us on this. But they don't
agree with the truth about why Jesus came and what He did. So
let's keep reading here. In Hebrews chapter 10 it says, in verse 5, "...Wherefore, when
He cometh into the world, the Lord Jesus Christ, He saith,"
and this is a quotation from Psalm 40, "...He saith, Sacrifice
and offering? That wouldest not." He didn't
even want them. But a body hast thou prepared
me. See, that does, with one stroke,
it takes all of those Old Testament sacrifices, which were required
by God, and it puts them under the lump of, they were required,
but God had took no pleasure in them. They were only there
to point to the one who was coming. And he says, sacrifice and offering
thou wouldest not. But a body hast thou prepared
me." That tells us the reason why he came, doesn't it? He came
to offer himself to God. To please God in that offering. To satisfy God. And to make atonement
for his people. And he says, I'll keep reading
it. Thou hast prepared me this body, in burnt offerings and
sacrifices for sin. Thou hast had no pleasure. Then
said I, You can see the willingness and the eagerness of the Lord
Jesus Christ coming, can't you? Lo, I come, in the volume of
the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God. That was
what he came to do, the will of God. He came to do that. Go
back to Matthew now. So, he was born of a virgin. He is God. He never ceased to
be God. He didn't change in His coming
into the world. He came unto us. A son is given,
but unto us a child is born. You see that? And that's in Isaiah. So here, we read it now, that
Christ was born of Mary, of the Holy Ghost. And then in verse
19, Joseph, her husband, being a just man, and not willing to
make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.
Joseph was a believer, and he learned about Mary being in the
state of expecting a child, And he obviously didn't understand
that her conception was of the Holy Ghost. She probably told
him, but he doubted it. Otherwise, he wouldn't have thought
to put her away. So he doubted that what she had
said and what he saw was miraculous, that was of God. He assumed the
worst. But he didn't just react. And
this is what we do. Have you ever been in a situation
where someone you love dearly does something really bad, and
you have to decide what to do about it? This teaches us what
love does. Love covers a multitude of sin. Love looks for a way, under the
truth of scripture, under the guidance of God, how can we deal
with a situation without uncovering and exposing this one that I
love. Isn't that what love does? You
find that someone you love has done something horribly bad,
and because of your love for them, you're going to find a
way with God's grace to forgive them yourself and to find a way
how God can resolve that situation in His way to bring about a purpose
of salvation. That's what Joseph is looking
for. How can I do this? I'm going to have to put her
away. It's the law. I could marry her, but then there'll be this
this scandal, or I could put her away publicly and have her
stoned, or I could put her away privately. And so he's thinking
about these things. And he's a just man, so he's
trying to do the best he can do for her, only within the will
of God. It's for her, but he's trying
to do it God's way. So he's thinking about these
things. And when he thought of these things, verse 20, Behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph,
thou son of David, Fear not to take unto thee Mary 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, for he shall save his people from their sins." Now,
I know that we will not be able to get through this today, so
I'm going to leave you with most of this sermon for next week. We want to focus on verse 21
next week, but before we do, I want you to look at this name,
Jesus. Jesus. How many times do you
read that name in the New Testament? How many times have you read
Jesus Christ or heard the words Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus
in the New Testament? That's the way God refers to
Him, isn't it? That's the way He's preached. Well, do you know? These are
the things I've seen about this name, Jesus. His enemies hated him. And so when they referred to
him as Jesus, they referred to him in a way of being derogatory
in using his name as Jesus. And they often said Jesus of
Nazareth. They coupled the two together,
of Nazareth. In John 8, in verse 54, I think
it is, he says, say we not well, that thou art a Samaritan, and
hast a devil." Now Nazareth was in Galilee of the Gentiles, and
Samaria was the region in which that was. So they thought, you're
from this place called Samaria. We know the history about the
Samaritans. The Samaritans were people repopulated in that place. They were taken away by the king
of Assyria, the people who lived there originally, who were descendants
of the Israelites, of the Jews. They were taken away and the
Assyrians put back in that land people who didn't know God and
served idols. And then somehow there was an intermingling. We
don't know who these people are. All we know is that they're Gentiles. Galilee of the Gentiles. They're
suspect. They're Samaritans. The woman
of Samaria came to Jesus. I mean, it didn't come to Him.
It came at the well. And Jesus was sitting there and He asked
her a drink. And she says, Why are you, being a Jew, asking
drink of me who am a woman of Samaria? So the Samaritans was
a very derogatory thing. And Nathanael himself said in
John 1, can anything good come out of Nazareth? It was not a
place where it wasn't like he's born in Bethlehem, even though
Jesus was prophesied to be born there. They didn't think he was
born there. They thought he was from Nazareth. He's a carpenter's
son. And he was a hewer of wood. And
a gatherer of water. Remember, that was the menial
task that the Gileadites, I think, were subjected to by Joshua when
they feigned themselves to be travelers with moldy bread and
worn out shoes and stuff. And they said, make them hewers
of wood and drawers of water. We won't kill them. But, because
we promised to them. And here, Joseph, Jesus' father,
was a carpenter, and he was a carpenter. It was a derogatory thing. Of
Nazareth and Samaria? A carpenter? A carpenter's son?
He's poor? There's no good thing expected
from there? The Samaritans are devil worshippers. He has a devil.
That's what's wrong with him. All these things were cast upon
the name of Jesus. And Pilate himself said it this
way. He says, when he crucified him, he says, this is Jesus,
King of the Jews. Remember that? He's King of the
Jews. Jesus is the King of the Jews.
And so they use the name Jesus to refer to this man who they
crucified. What shall we do with him that's
called King of the Jews? Crucify him. Crucify him. He's Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth. We have no interest in Him. Now,
here's the significant thing, though. Look at the book of Acts.
Because when the Lord sent the gospel in the book of Acts, listen
to the way the sermons are preached here. And I've come to appreciate
this as I was studying for this sermon here, as I was reading
through these sermons in the book of Acts. Look at Acts chapter
2. Well, I should read the whole
account here, but I'm going to jump right in the middle. Look
at verse 21. It shall come to pass, speaking from Joel, it
shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the
Lord shall be saved. Who are they supposed to call
on? The Lord. You men of Israel, Peter is preaching,
hear these words. These are solemn words. Jesus
of Nazareth, A man approved of God among you by miracles and
wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you,
as you yourselves also know." You can't deny this. He was approved
of God. He did these miracles. You saw
it. Jesus of Nazareth. Him being
delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, you have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.
Jesus of Nazareth, you killed him! He was approved of God,
and it was God's predeterminate counsel and foreknowledge that
you do it that way. whom God hath raised up, having
loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should
be holden of it. For David speaketh concerning
him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on
my..." Anytime you read the word Lord in the New Testament, it's
referring to God. He's the Lord. I foresaw the
Lord." And it always amuses me in an angry way and in a sad
way. All somehow those emotions are
combined together. When people deny the deity of
Christ, just open the New Testament and read the words, Lord. What
do you think he's saying there if he's not talking about God?
He's the Lord. I foresaw the Lord always before
my face, for He is on my right hand, that I should not be moved."
That's David speaking. Therefore did my heart rejoice,
and my tongue was glad. Moreover, also my flesh shall
rest in hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither
wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Thou hast
made known to me the ways of life. Thou shalt make me full
of joy with thy countenance." Men and brethren, let me freely
speak to you of the patriarch David. He's dead and buried. His sepulcher is with us to this
day. So he couldn't have been speaking about himself. What
do you mean, thou wilt not suffer thine holy one to see corruption?
He's obviously saw corruption. Therefore being a prophet and
knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit
of his loins according to the flesh he would raise up Christ
to sit on his throne. He's seen this before, spake
of the resurrection of Christ, that His soul was not left in
hell, neither His flesh did see corruption. This Jesus, you see
that? hath God raised up, whereof we
are all our witnesses. Therefore, being by the right
hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise
of the Holy Ghost, has shed forth this which you now see and hear.
Jesus of Nazareth, the one you crucified by wicked hands, and
counted to be a devil, a Samaritan, of no good account, Him, God
approved. Him, God sat on David's throne.
Him, God exalted to his right hand in glory. Him, He is God
who gives the Holy Ghost to whomsoever He will and saves whomsoever
He will. He's the Lord. He's the one who
is sitting on God's throne. Do you see that? David is not
ascended to the heavens. He said himself, the Lord said
to my Lord, sit thou on my right hand until I make thy foes thy
footstool. God, and so he says this in verse
36, "...therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly
that God hath made that same Jesus whom you have crucified,
both Lord and Christ." You see that? They thought he was Jesus. But by the Holy Spirit, Peter
teaches them. No, no. All the prophecies of
the Old Testament concerning David and his throne to come
had to do with Christ. And Christ reigning on the throne
of heaven. And God has exalted Him. Who? Jesus. Jesus? The one from Nazareth? The carpenter's
son? Yes. The one who walked among us?
Whose feet got dirty? Who got tired and hungry and
ate? And hung out with sinners? Yeah. The one whose genealogy
shows all these sinners? Yeah. The one born to Mary? Yes. That's Jesus. That's the Lord of Glory. That's
God's Christ. That's the promised Messiah.
That's the one who came to save his people, not from the Romans,
but from their sins. That's Jesus. That's the one.
Look over at Acts 4. I love reading these accounts
in Acts. One thing you'll see in these
sermons as you read through them, because I was going through this just
this last week, You'll see over and over again the emphasis on
the fact that God has exalted Jesus. The one that you thought
low of, God has exalted. Look at Acts 4. He says in verse
8, this was after they were taken
aside by the Sadducees and the rulers of the temple and these
his captains of the temple, and they laid hands on them to put
them, and they did put them in prison for a day. And they came
out in verse 8, and Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, he said
to them, Now this is what the Holy Ghost said, and this is
important too. What did the Holy Ghost move
Peter and Paul and all the Apostles in the book of Acts to preach?
Nothing but this, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You read that,
I'll read it to you here, Acts 5.42, it says, "...Daily in the
temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach
Jesus Christ." You see that? But here, in Acts 4, he says
to the rulers in verse 8, Be it known to you, and to be
it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by
the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God
raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here
before you whole. This is the stone which was set
at nought of you builders, which has become the head of the corner.
And now listen to verse 12. Neither is there salvation in
any other, for there is none other name under heaven given
among men, whereby we must be saved. You see that? The name
of Jesus. That was the name, the name of
Jesus Christ. And now look, one last verse,
and I'll have to close here because I'm not going to rush through
this because there's so much material, but look at Philippians
chapter 2. This will put the cap on it. This will show you that the epistles
are teaching this and bringing this, driving this home to us.
He says, let this mind, in verse 5, Philippians 2, let this mind
be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the
form of God, and I think it's Christ Jesus in the order because
first he was Christ, And he was born as a son of Mary. Jesus
is the name of his humanity, the name of his humiliation.
But it's also a name, as we're going to see later, of great
glory. He says here, So let this mind be in you, which
was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought
it not robbery to be equal with God. He wasn't taking anything
from God. and being equal with God, but
made himself of no reputation. He emptied himself, and he took
upon him the form of a servant, a slave, a slave to God, and
a slave for his people. Exodus chapter 21, he was the
slave that said in his heart, I love my master, I love my wife,
and I love my children, and I will not go out free. I will serve
him forever. He took upon Him the form of
a servant, and He was made in the likeness of men. And being
found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore, God also
hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above
every name, that at the name of Jesus..." You see that? "...every
knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth,
and things under the earth. And every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
What a mystery, isn't it? That He would become man, why
He would do that, and what He did by doing that will be the
subject of next week. His name is Jesus. The name Jesus
means Jehovah is salvation. Jehovah is my Savior. His name
is who He is. He's the Savior. And His name
is what He does. He saves. Let's pray. Father,
we thank you that our Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ, came into
this world gladly, willingly, according to the eternal will
and purpose and pleasure of God. And He fulfilled all the will
of God. He came to do the will, and he
did the will of God. He came to save his people. It
was promised, he shall save his people from their sins. We know
that your word cannot fail, and he's the one who gave the word,
and he's the one who fulfilled that word, because he is the
Lord of glory. He is Emmanuel, God with us.
Thank you, Lord, that this Jesus so humbled himself as to take
our nature and obey in everything in order to save his people from
their sins. All of our salvation is on his
shoulders. All of it was accomplished by
him. Nothing left undone that needed to be done. He did it
all. And now he reigns in rules because he conquered, and he
triumphed, and he fulfilled the will of God, finished it as our
high priest, laid his life down as your lamb for us. Lord, we thank you. We pray,
Lord, that you would guide us in our reading, in our thoughts,
in our prayers, and in our hearing of your word. Cause us to know
our sin so that when we see our Savior who came to lay his life
down to take away the sins of his people, we would rejoice
in him. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.