Matthew 1:18-25 | The Birth of the Promise

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

In Matthew chapter 1, beginning in verse 18, the Word of God declares, Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.

Matthew 1 · chapter mention

When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

All of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.

When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.

He took his wife, but he knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus.

Let's pray.

Our Lord Jesus, we come together this morning, we bow before you, asking you to fulfill our prayer of what we have just sung, that you would reveal yourself to us.

You would do that through your word.

Enable us to see you, to not be distracted by the cares of today, by the cares of this week, by the worries that it might bring, by the burdens it might bring, by the grief it might bring, but that you would, by your spirit, clear the cobwebs of our hearts and our souls and our minds to be able to see you and to relish in you today.

Amen.

In 1744, Charles Wesley wrote the hymn, Come, thou long expected Jesus.

Come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free.

From our sins and fears, release us, and let us find our rest in thee.

Israel's strength and consolation, hope of all the earth thou art, dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart.

Wesley begins and ends that section with this idea of waiting, of longing.

Come thou long expected Jesus.

Do you know what it's like to wait?

Do you know what it is like to wait?

Waiting for school to end.

For those of you who are kids and students, waiting for summer, waiting for a better job, waiting for a pay raise, waiting to go home from the hospital, to be done with treatment, waiting to be well, waiting for Christmas.

Do you know what it is like to wait?

I thought I knew what it was like to wait.

But waiting for God to make Allison and myself a family of three instead of a family of two taught me more things than I ever cared to know about waiting.

We wanted a larger family.

In fact, we did one of those unwise things, and while we were engaged, we were started talking about how many children we wanted.

And we fully expected God to give that gift of a large family to us.

But one of the hard truths learned in waiting is that God's good gifts to you are not always what you imagine.

Many people wait long, long numbers of years.

Allison and I waited for eighteen years.

Rarely was it easy to wait.

Sometimes we were patient, but mostly impatient.

We pursued just about everything in our ability to have a family.

At times we were hopeful, often depressed, wondering and waiting, asking why and when.

We thought our waiting might perhaps be interrupted when we investigated international adoption.

We were excited to be able to consider this possibility, but we wondered if there is a door opening there, but that door quickly closed when my dad was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

And so we waited some more.

Wearied with waiting.

Then we were surprised.

We were surprised after 13 years of waiting when we were asked to adopt a baby boy.

Maybe our waiting was done, finally.

But a few months later, the Lord took that away.

And so we waited longer.

Five more years.

Until we were on the verge of giving up waiting by reluctantly giving up our dream for a large family.

We were very, very close to just deciding to be done hoping.

And it was then that our waiting ended when the Lord provided a little baby boy in our home.

Our waiting was varied.

It had its ups and downs.

It was like a roller coaster.

We waited for 13 years before even considering adoption, and then we waited another five years beyond that.

And perhaps the most anxious was the last 30 days before the Lord placed a son in our arms.

Eighteen years.

Some of you may have a sense of waiting longer than that.

Waiting.

Come, thou long-expected Jesus.

Wesley did not write about days or even weeks.

This song is not about years of waiting.

Decades of waiting doesn't even come close to touching on what Wesley intended to communicate.

In the first seventeen verses of this chapter, we see thousands of years.

Most likely at least two thousand years of genealogy is recorded in the first seventeen verses.

Waiting entails an untold number of expectations, of hopes, of dreams, of dashed hopes and dashed dreams, disappointments, even agony.

Waiting brings twists and turns and realignments over and over and over again.

All along, those who wait wonder if there will be an end to the waiting.

Some feel as though the waiting never ceases.

And sometimes we cry, How long, O Lord?

How long?

Hope entered this world in a promise given by God to Eve in the very first pages of your Bible.

Then the serpent brought darkness into God's good world, but God then promised to crush the head of that snake.

And so began a long, slow war between God and the evil one.

But God had promised hope.

Hope.

Would it come in Seth?

Adam and Eve's son?

Was he the one to fulfill God's promise?

No, not really.

Because after Cain's murderous act, sin continued to prevail, eventually moving God to destroy the world, leaving only eight people with which to begin again.

Hope was crushed, but not destroyed.

Then hope was renewed with Abraham, but nervously trusted through twists and turns, realignments and disappointments.

Hope was crushed when Israel was enslaved in Egypt.

Hope was renewed as Israel was redeemed and given a new home.

Hope began to flow away like waters dripping away as the judges judged, and Israel entered a hopeless cycle of addiction to sin.

But hope was renewed in a king named David and a promise of God that David's son would rule forever.

But hope was yet again crushed when Solomon died, and the nation divided.

The light of hope flickered to life with the slimmest brightness, with the righteous king here and there occasionally, all along reminding Israel and us that God promised a king.

God promised to crush the snake.

God promised to deal with evil.

But the waiting had been so long, so very, very long.

The candle of hope was snuffed out as Israel was led into captivity.

Their homes destroyed, their children carried off into a completely unknown future.

Oh, the wick still had an ember of brightness, but nothing more.

When Israel returned to the land God gave them, it was nothing like before.

More waiting and waiting.

Ready to give up waiting, to give up hoping.

Almost snuffing out the last vestige of brightness clinging to that wick.

But even as King Herod's reign was about to end, there was still a remnant of hope.

Because it's hard to give up.

It's hard to give up hope when you truly believe that God will act.

When you live with a deep-seated hope in God that God will do something, that God will finally respond to your prayer.

Hope is hard to give up.

But the waiting is oh so hard.

And so Zerubbabel became the ancestor of Aviud, who was the father of Eliakim, who fathered Atsor, and Hatzor fathered Zadok, who fathered Achim, who fathered Eliud, and Eliud fathered Eliazar, and Eliazar fathered Matam, and Matan fathered Jacob.

So much waiting.

Generation after generation after generation.

And not much changed when Joseph was born to Jacob.

Time and waiting continued for a couple more decades.

Waiting, wondering.

Remaining embers fading away, wondering if hope would die.

And then Joseph took Mary to be his wife, who, apart from any human act, gave birth to a boy named Jesus, who is called Messiah.

God's promise.

And as quietly as could be, God slipped into his world.

Not to renew hope, but to be the hope by fulfilling his promise.

In doing so, God struck his first blow in a war begun so long ago that his people had almost lost hope.

And of all places, God chose tiny Bethlehem.

I like what Douglas Wilson has written.

He says, Bethlehem was the opening gambit in the last campaign of a long war.

Many centuries after our father Adam had first plunged our race into the insanity of sin, God finally made his opening move.

Jesus Christ, born of a woman, born under the law, was born to fulfill every one of the numerous promises that God had made during our long night.

He continues on.

Would his people know him?

Well, the birth of God's promise came finally through the most unexpected of ways.

When hope was almost lost and many missed it.

How did it happen?

Augustine put it like this The Word of the Father by whom all time was created, was made flesh and was born in time for us.

He who without whose divine permission no day completes its course selected one day for his human birth.

And so the maker of man became man, that he, ruler of stars, might be weaned as an infant, that he, the bread, might be hungry, that he, the fountain, might thirst, that he, the light, might sleep, that he, the way, might be wearied by the journey, that he, the truth, might be accused by false witnesses, that he, the judge of the living and the dead, might be brought to trial by a mortal judge, that he, justice, might be condemned by the unjust, that he, disciplined, might be scourged with whips, that he, the foundation, might be suspended upon a cross, so that he, the life, might die.

Emmanuel.

God with us.

The waiting is over.

How would you explain the end of two thousand years of waiting?

How would you do that?

How would you describe to another person or persons the end of such a long wait?

Well, Matthew used 17 verses to cover two millennia.

And then he used only eight to explain the most unexplainable circumstances in history.

It all began, Matthew said, with a startling discovery made here by Joseph.

Joseph and Mary were engaged.

Joseph would have been older than Mary.

That was the standard of the day, perhaps as old as twenty or even thirty.

Mary might have been in her late teens, but more likely thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old.

Jewish betrothals were not like our modern engagements.

They were pretty different.

Marriages were generally arranged when the woman, at least, was quite young.

Later, at an appropriate age for the time, they would become officially betrothed, or we can use the term engaged, understanding that it's different.

Even before the wedding, the couple was considered to be legally married.

And so they had an engagement period that lasted about a year, during which time the husband prepared a new home for his wife to be.

And while they were legally married during that time, they did not live together until after the wedding.

So you can imagine the bewildered, angry, and disappointment Joseph had when it was discovered that Mary was expecting a child.

Now we're not told how Joseph learned the news.

But Joseph knew the child was not his.

It was physically impossible, he being a righteous man.

And so that left only two possibilities rape or adultery.

Mary was not claiming rape, so that left adultery as the only reasonable conclusion.

And he had no option.

Joseph had to marry, had to divorce Mary.

Because Jewish laws generally required that a man divorce an adulterous wife.

There was no option of giving her another chance.

Both Jewish and Greek and Roman laws all demanded that a man divorce his wife if she were guilty of adultery.

And so, if Joseph went ahead with the wedding, everyone would know and assume that he had gotten her pregnant.

No longer would Joseph ever be seen as righteous in the eyes of the community.

But we see Joseph's character shining through.

He determined, it says, to divorce her secretly, without the publicity of a very public ending to their marriage.

He understood the shame and the agony that Mary would endure, and he didn't want her to have to endure more than was already present.

And that says a tremendous amount about the kind of man Joseph was.

Do not think that Joseph was weak or timid.

He was nothing of the kind.

This is a righteous man seeking to obey the law in the kindest way.

It's the fruit of the Spirit.

Kindness, gentleness, and self-control.

Joseph didn't act rashly.

He was gracious in his treatment of Mary and considerate in how he approached the startling discovery.

In fact, Matthew tells us that Joseph spent some time thinking about how to proceed, because he too had been waiting for this day.

Joseph and Mary had been waiting perhaps for years to get married, and now for Joseph, this must have been depressive news.

So finally he makes up his mind.

He was resolved to divorce Mary, but do it secretly.

So perhaps as he mulled the details of how to do that, he was surprised again, this time with a startling announcement.

Behold, Matthew writes, wake up, this is important to note, he says.

Maybe Joseph had made up his mind, but he was going to sleep on it before acting on it.

More waiting.

More waiting.

And finally, as though it's the last desperate moment, in his sleep, an angel of Yahweh appeared to him.

Now Joseph probably didn't know that an angel had already appeared to Mary's relative, Zechariah, announcing the conception of a boy to me named John, who would prepare a way for the Lord.

It's likely at this point in time that he did not know that Mary had had a similar encounter.

It seems as though Joseph had no knowledge of either of those encounters.

No, Joseph only knew the long, cold darkness of Waiting.

God's people had not heard from him for some four hundred years.

All that existed between God and Israel was silence, long, painful silence.

Had God forgotten them?

Had God forgotten his promise?

Was hope lost?

And then exploding through the silence of night is the voice of an angel.

Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife.

For that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

Joseph was afraid.

But he didn't fear the angel.

He feared taking Mary as his wife.

Now, generally, it's not uncommon for men to be a little bit afraid walking down that aisle.

This is a completely different situation.

The angel doesn't make him afraid.

Walking down the aisle with Mary gives him fear.

Word would get out if it had not already.

Their lives would be lived in shame if they went through with the wedding.

They would lose friends.

They would lose family.

They would be disowned.

Their community would consider them outsiders.

That's not what Joseph had been waiting for.

That's not what he thought God had planned for him all along.

Do not fear, the angel commanded him.

See, Joseph was to learn what an ex-Pharisee would write decades later.

For those who love God, all things work together for good.

To those who are called according to his purpose.

This young man loved God, and he was called in God's purpose to have an integral role in the ending of God's silence, in the bringing of hope through the fulfillment of the birth of God's promise.

So for 17 verses, Matthew has laid out Joseph's ancestry.

His ancestry goes all the way back to Abraham.

But the crucial part in his family tree is the connection to David, the great king.

In this moment, in this startling announcement, the most important part of Joseph's connection in his past, in his history, in his family tree, is that he is a son of David.

Because the messianic line now runs through the carpenter.

Therefore, a son of Joseph would legally be a son of David.

Don't be afraid to marry this pregnant girl, Joe.

For that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

How does one even begin to process that?

I've asked myself that question all week long, and I still don't know.

I think I've asked myself that for years, and I still don't know.

How do you process that question?

The angel told Joseph that something had taken place that had never occurred before and never would again.

Mary had not been unfaithful to him.

Mary had not sinned against God and against him.

Joe, don't fear.

God has caused your fiance to be pregnant.

The Holy Spirit has made God the Son into a baby in the womb, her womb.

Now that would have been startling enough.

But the angel kept talking.

She will bear a son.

And you will call his name Jesus.

Not only had the angel told Joseph what had taken place already, he then proceeded to tell Joseph, here's what the rest is going to be like.

He told Joseph exactly what would happen in the future.

There would be no wondering if Mary was going to give birth to a boy or a girl.

There would be no wrestling about names, no wondering about what he might grow up to be.

It was all decided.

So Joseph was commanded to wed a pregnant girl.

Her son would become his.

And he was commanded to name the child Jesus, a form of the Hebrew word for Joshua, meaning Yahweh saves.

For this boy was unique.

He was the birth of God's promise, and he would save his people from their sins.

The long wait was over.

A thousand years before, an unknown songwriter composed a tune with these words, O Israel, hope in Yahweh.

For with Yahweh there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption, and he, he himself will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

Mary, the Holy Spirit, conception, Jesus.

Imagine waking from that dream.

Someday I hope to ask Joseph what thoughts went racing through his mind after that dream.

An engaged girl, having never slept with a man, would give birth to God's promise, a promise thousands of years in the making and in the waiting.

A boy who would be a savior baby.

I'm sure they wondered.

But you don't have to.

We don't need to wonder.

Because we sing the song, Born thy people to deliver, born a child, and yet a king.

We sing that because that's what God has promised all along.

And Matthew tells us here that there is supporting scripture, supporting prophecy for that.

He says, the prophet Isaiah wrote, Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.

Now that was written in Isaiah's time.

And in Isaiah's time, there was a king over Israel named Ahaz.

And Ahaz, quite literally, was freaking out about enemies that were coming after them.

And so God gave a sign to Ahaz, the king, telling Ahaz, God is going to work.

I'm going to do something.

I'm going to be with you.

And here's the sign, the promise that I'm going to be with you.

And God did that.

A young woman gave birth to a child, and God fulfilled his promises to Ahaz.

But as is often the case with signs from God, that birth pointed to something far greater than what Ahaz experienced.

We know that because the sign is just a little bit later extended in Isaiah to a child who would be called wonderful counselor.

The mighty God.

The everlasting father and the prince of peace.

See, God promised Ahaz that he would be with his people, and the birth of a baby would be the sign of that presence.

And that happened.

But centuries later, Joseph would learn that there was a greater fulfillment of that promise.

It would not simply be a young girl who would conceive and give birth to a son, but a virgin would conceive a son.

A son who in every way would be God with us.

In his sermon entitled God with Us, Charles Spurgeon said, quote, that an angel should become a man is a matter of no great consequence to me.

That some other superior being should assume the nature of man brings no joy to my heart.

It opens no well of consolation to me.

But God with us is exquisite delight.

Why?

Because he said, God, therein is majesty.

God with us is mercy.

God is glory.

God with us is grace.

He said, God alone might well strike within us terror.

But God with us inspires hope and confidence.

Because the wait is over.

I know it's impossible to say what we would do in those circumstances.

Do you believe a dream that announces an impossibility?

Do you obey an angel's command to change the direction of your life?

Do you listen to an angel and so take on a life of shame, character, assassination, and gossip?

Do you follow through when it means the end of life as you thought it would be?

Remember, Joseph was a righteous man.

And when a person is righteous in God's eyes, there will be evidence of that work of God in the way a person lives.

Joseph was no different.

His response to the angel's announcement is to act with sustaining faith.

When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.

He took his wife.

But he knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus.

Please don't miss the subtle point here.

Joseph is the first person to exercise faith in God's promise fulfilled in Jesus.

He's the first person.

The angel's message to Joseph is a call to that young man to respond in faith to the birth of God's promise.

In doing so, Joseph took up his cross and followed Jesus.

Joseph and Mary abstained from intimacy until after Jesus was born.

That would be proof that Jesus was Mary's son, but not Joseph's.

But Joseph would have no means of proving his own righteous character.

Everyone would assume that Jesus was his son, conceived before marriage.

And so in obeying the angel and in exercising faith in God's promise, Joseph gave up his right to have his own reputation.

And every follower of Christ does the same.

We don't know anything of Joseph beyond Jesus' toddler years.

Most conclude that Joseph died before Jesus began his ministry.

But look at what we see of that man.

In faith, he obeyed.

Not knowing what the future of trusting in God's promise meant, he obeyed.

Perhaps the greatest act of faith we see in Joseph is in the very last line of this chapter.

He called his name Jesus.

The angel had given that command.

You will call his name Jesus.

Now we tend to read that and think nothing of it.

It's sort of secondhand, second nature to us because we celebrate and think about this every year.

But there is much implied in that statement because the father bore the responsibility for naming the child.

So the angel was in essence commanding Joseph this child is God's son, but you will take him as your son.

He is not your son, but you will make him your own.

What a command.

Now we often think of Mary's role in giving birth to the very one who brought her into being.

But don't overlook Joseph.

In one interaction with an angel, he is told to embrace the shame of Mary's pregnancy and taking her son, God's son, as his own.

Joseph is commanded to claim Emmanuel as his own.

Imagine that.

Try to wrap your brain around this miracle of conception, a conception of a boy who would save.

Not in a military way or powerful way, but because he is the very incarnation of God, the birth of God's promise.

Imagine hearing the words of the angels.

You must take him as your son.

How do you parent God?

Look at the verbs.

Verses twenty-four and twenty-five.

He did.

He did.

He took.

And he called.

He did, he took, and he called.

Astounding faith.

Astounding faith.

Joseph believed the angel, and in believing the angel, he believed that this son was the birth of God's promise.

There was no more waiting for God's salvation.

In calling him Jesus, Joseph acted in faith.

Jesus, Yahweh, saves.

Jesus, Yahweh, with us.

Because in Joseph we see trusting faith as he took up his cross and followed this Son.

In Joseph, we see all that we are called to do.

You must make Emmanuel your own.

Call him Jesus.

That God with us is exquisite delight.

So what do we do with Christmas?

I'd like to close with a quote from George Whitfield almost 300 years ago.

What?

Shall we not remember the birth of our Jesus?

Shall we yearly celebrate the births of others?

And shall that of the King of Kings be quite forgotten?

Shall that only which ought to be had chiefly in remembrance be quite forgotten?

God forbid.

No, my dear brethren, let us celebrate and keep this festival of our church with joy in our hearts.

Let the birth of a Redeemer who redeemed us from sin, from wrath, from death, from hell be always remembered.

May this Savior's love never be forgotten, but may we sing forth with all his love and glory as long as life shall last and through an endless eternity in the world above.

May we chant forth the wonders of redeeming love, the riches of his free grace, along with angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim, without intermission, forever and ever.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Our Lord Jesus, we lift you up this morning.

We give you thanks and praise for who you are, for what you've done.

It boggles our minds, just like I'm sure it boggled Joseph's mind.

How do you comprehend the incomprehenible?

So we end where we've begun, asking that you would give us eyes of faith to see with Simeon that this, this child, is Emmanuel, born to save his people from their sins.

And may we worship him with voices forever and ever.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

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