The Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ Pt. 2

We, um, this is our second week looking at the Virgin birth.

Uh, maybe something that you don't think of specifically in a focused way, most Christmases, uh, but something that the spirit just really laid on my heart.

I'd started out in a different direction where this short Christmas series, and this is the direction the spirit led me.

So, so maybe this is something that in a way we'll, we'll bring Christmas into a new focus for you.

Give you another facet of the diamond.

Two weeks ago we looked at the Virgin birth from the perspective of Mary as the angel appeared to Mary and Luke chapter one.

Today we're looking at the Virgin birth from the perspective of Joseph and that is in Matthew chapter one.

If you have a Bible, I'd encourage you to open it or turn on your, your, your device to Matthew chapter one I'm going to be reading verses 18 through 25.

Here are the word of the Lord.

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.

His mother, Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy spirit because Joseph, her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace.

He had in mind to divorce her quietly, but after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife because what is conceived in her is from the Holy spirit.

She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet.

The Virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us.

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him, and he took Mary home as his wife, but he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son and he gave him the name Jesus.

Two weeks ago I cited the recent Pew research poll, nationwide poll, touching people from all different groups across the United States about many issues, but including questions on the Virgin birth.

And I mentioned this two weeks ago, the first finding did not surprise me that a third of those surveyed, remember this as people who, who have some church connection and people who don't.

So a third of the general population do believe at all.

And the Virgin birth didn't surprise me.

I actually thought that that figure might be higher, but it wasn't.

The second figure really surprised me, 30% so think three out of 10 people, 30% of those who considered themselves one way or another to be Christians got no real clear definition given to that.

So if somebody identified in this, this poll as a Christian, they just accepted that at face value, 30% of those who identified themselves as a Christian said they either did not believe in the Virgin birth or they did not consider that to be any kind of essential doctrine of what it means to be a Christian.

They considered it to be unimportant.

Now, I don't know how reflective of that figure is and the church like like this, but, but I would say even if it's not 30% there may be some here today.

Even if you are regular church goer or even if you feel you've been a Christian for a long time, you may question did it really happen the way that they said?

Was Mary really a Virgin at the time that she gave birth to Jesus?

Or you may question, is it really important?

Isn't this one of these secondary things?

Is this really so crucially important?

Let me show you where I'm going with this because I think it's absolutely essential and I'm going to do it just simply in three points.

I'll lay them out for you right now.

First one is obvious.

I've kind of already stated my position, but I want to show you from from Matthew here, clearly that Jesus, the son of God, the Christ, the Messiah, came to earth by a Virgin birth.

I'll show you that in the text.

Secondly, the purpose for his coming, Jesus came to save us from our sins.

But the third point is where I want to tie these two together because essentially I think these two are inextricably linked and so our last point today will be that Jesus is able to save us from our sins because of his Virgin birth.

Or to put it another way, if he had not been born of a Virgin, he would not be, have been able to save us to offer of us salvation.

So let's go to the first point.

First, Jesus, his Virgin birth, the son of God, the Messiah, the Christ came to earth through the birth of through normal human birth with one major exception.

His mother was a Virgin at the time that she gave birth to him.

There are at least six clear assertions of this in the text that Matthew gives us.

First of all, and verse 18, we see the first one when his mother had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child.

She was, she was found to be pregnant before she and Joseph came together.

Understand that.

But trow, there's some of your versions may say engaged or pledged the patrol though period, somewhat similar to our engagement period today, but much more serious.

Once you became vitro, the once you became engaged, uh, you could, that, you could only break that through actually going through a formal ceremony of divorce by the husband issuing a certificate of divorce, a much more serious than it is today and longer.

I mean, there are some long engagements today, but you know, my engagement was I think about three months.

Uh, this is, this is almost universally in that culture, uh, about a year.

And the reason being, there are a number of reasons, but one of the key reasons and it, and it becomes important here in this text is that that year was a period in which it could be established that the couple was entering into marriage sexually pure.

In other words, if the woman was found to be pregnant anywhere in that year period there that would be detected.

You couldn't, in other words, sneak a pregnancy in under the cover of a quick marriage.

That was one of the purposes of the patrol eval period and Matthew tells us in that context that she became pregnant before they came together and before, I'm not going to get really precise here, you, I think you have the sense of what's being talked about here, but that that betrothal was, was completed at the the marriage feast and then following the marriage feast at the end of roughly that year, the couple would go to the groom's house or the house that he'd, he'd prepared and the marriage would be physically consummated.

Matthew is telling us Mary became pregnant before the marriage was consummated before Mary and Joseph became physically intimate with each other.

What is that?

That is a proof that Mary was a Virgin at the time that she gave birth to Jesus.

Now that's not the only assertion.

The second assertion is in the second half of verse 18 she was found to be with child by the Holy spirit and that word by is important.

Just two little letters, but by really means because of the action of, let's say you knew a woman and you knew she was not married and as far as you knew, she didn't have any other male partner in her life and you suddenly discovered that she was pregnant.

You would, maybe you wouldn't actually say this, but you'd at least be thinking the question, well, who did she become pregnant by?

Why would you think that question?

Because you and I know women do not become pregnant without some male, and yet that is exactly what Matthew is telling us here.

Mary's pregnancy he's telling us was not by Joseph.

It was not by any other human man.

It was by the Holy spirit.

It was the result of the Holy Spirit's miraculous creative power.

Again, there is another proof that Matthew gives us that Jesus was born through a Virgin birth.

The third assertion we see in verse 19 Jesus or Joseph was a righteous man and because he was a righteous man, when he discovered that Mary was pregnant, he didn't want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to divorce her secretly.

Joseph was a righteous man.

He, he lived his life trying to do what is right under the law of God, and so he knew because he had tried to do that, that they had been sexually pure.

He knew he had done what was right towards his fiance.

He knew this child wasn't his.

We don't have the exact timing, but I'm wondering if Joseph finally discovered that Mary was pregnant as she returned from that visit to Elizabeth's house.

Remember she was with Elizabeth three months.

I think it was during that time that that the miracle happened and so she comes back and she's probably two, maybe three months pregnant.

He, it's probably noticeable at this point.

There's no indication in any of the texts that Mary has shared with Joseph what the angel has told her.

So she does.

He doesn't have the benefit of that explanation.

So what does he think this woman who is his fiance, who he knows he's been sexually appeared towards, is suddenly pregnant.

What is he to think?

What would you think it must be by someone else?

So he was righteous, not only in that he remained sexually pure towards her, he was righteous and that he's thinking as a Jewish man who wants to observe the law of God, I need to do the right thing.

What is the right thing to do?

Discovering that my fiance is pregnant and it's not by me thinking perhaps that thinking for sure it's by another man.

He had two options under Deuteronomy 22 there was a very severe option.

Deuteronomy 22 says that if a woman who's engaged is made pregnant by another man, and that is discovered and it's not a case of rape, both the woman and that other man are brought to the gate of the city and can be stoned to death.

So he knew there was that severe option.

He also knew, and this is the direction I think the text indicates he's going here, that Deuteronomy 24 had another provision that a man discovering that his wife and in the engagement period, this would qualify a man discovering that his, there was some indecency in his wife.

Deuteronomy 24 one says can issue her a certificate of divorce.

That's, that's what I see.

I think we see playing out here in verse 19 Joseph discovers this indecency, this.

His fiance is pregnant, not by him.

He concludes, it's from another man and so he elects to do what is right.

The righteous thing is to divorce her.

He's going to do it quietly.

He doesn't want to shame her.

He has compassion on her, but he's going to do the right thing and this is what he would have done if the angel hadn't stopped him.

My point in all of this is that Joseph's decision to divorce Mary reflects that.

He knew there was no way that this pregnancy was by him.

Another indirect support of the Virgin birth.

Joseph was not at all involved.

The fourth assertion we see in verse 20 and what the angel says to him, because what has been conceived in her is by the Holy spirit.

Now, I don't think this one requires much comment.

I think it's plain on its face, but here are the angel as a spokesman for God tells Joseph this conception is not by any man.

This conception, the creation of that baby in her is by the Holy spirit.

God is making it clear here to Joseph.

He's making it clear to you and me the readers that no man, no human man has contributed to this pregnancy, another support of the Virgin birth.

The fifth assertion we see in verses 22 and 23 Matthew references the prophecy of Isaiah.

Isaiah seven 14 if that's not in the notes of your Bible, you might want to write that in the notes there.

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

Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son.

Now.

It's not like Isaiah wrote this, you know, and he lived within a few years of of when the disciples and the early writers of the new Testament were so they concocted all of this to support what happened.

Now, Isaiah wrote this seventh centuries before seven 30 BC and what is he saying that God has promised that God will one day do you saying that God will through a Virgin, a young woman who has never been physically intimate with any man.

God will bring about a conception, a pregnancy while keeping her virginity intact.

Matthew is telling us this is fulfilled in the case of Mary with Jesus.

Again, one more proof of the Virgin birth, the six assertion we see in verse 25 Joseph knew her not until she gave birth to a son, and I'm not going to get in detail here, but in the biblical sense, physical intimacy, sexual intimacy.

Joseph did not know her, did not, was not only was he not physically intimate with her immediately leading up to the conception, he was not physically intimate with her until after Jesus was born.

He married her sometime between her conception and Jesus's birth.

He kept her a Virgin until after Jesus was born.

One more proof of the Virgin birth.

There's actually a seventh and I don't have a slide for it because it involves too many verses, but if you scroll through about the first 16 verses in Matthew chapter one what do you get?

You get that genealogy, you know, it's that part that we often skip over or read through really fast and our Bible reading, but I encourage you to go back sometime and soon and look at it there.

Notice the pattern.

There is a pattern that repeats in the first 15 verses.

The pattern is simply this.

Abraham was the father of Isaac.

Isaac was the father of Jacob on and on 39 times.

Bill was the father of DEC.

Dick was the father of Tom and so on and so on until you get to verse 16 after time and time again of that pattern, this person was the father of this person.

When it gets to Joseph, it does not say Joseph was the father of Jesus.

It says Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born.

Matthew, again, even in his genealogy is showing us that Joseph was not the human biological father of Jesus.

Jesus was born a Virgin birth.

Clearly in all of this God wants us to see through Matthew and two weeks ago through Luke that Jesus was born of a Virgin.

Now hold that kind of in one side of your head and we will get back to that.

Let's look at the second point and then we'll tie these two together.

The second point, what was Jesus's purpose in coming into the world?

His purpose was he came to save us and the angel tells us, we see this even in what God has decided.

His earthly name should be Jesus.

Verse 21 she will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name.

Jesus.

Maybe you've heard this, so this may be a refresher to some of you.

Jesus is, is really just simply the Greek form of that old Testament name, Joshua and even Joshua.

That's a, that's our English way of saying it.

That's how we transliterate the Hebrew and the English.

If you look at the Hebrew, uh, occurrences of the name Joshua and the old Testament, you see either a long form or short form.

The long form is your host are your host.

You all means Yahweh.

The Lord is salvation.

The short form is your shoe, which means Yahweh.

The Lord saves.

So what is happening here?

This name that God says do the angel.

This child is to be named at.

This name identifies this child, Mary's son as the one who is the ultimate fulfillment of this name.

The Lord is salvation.

The Lord saves.

This one is the one who brings God's promised salvation.

Now, while in the Bibles to save can mean being saved or delivered from sickness.

It can be mean being delivered or rescued from physical danger, even delivered from death.

Here the angel focuses it in very closely.

Does he not look at verse 21 he will save his people from their sins and here I believe that a, it's even a reference back.

It's borrowing the language of Psalm 130 verse eight he, this is of God.

Y'all way will redeem, will save Israel from all their sins.

So God wants Joseph to see God wants you and me to see the readers, the significance of the name Jesus, that that name explains his purpose and doing all this why he would come into the world.

And it is simply this, we need to be saved.

We need to be saved and God has promised to save us and God is now fulfilling his purpose to save us by sending this one, this one who will be called Jesus into the world.

I've been thinking about that phrase, you know, save recently.

I don't know if you've noticed this.

I know, you know, as I was growing up, you could in a gospel presentation you, you could ask somebody on the street, you know, are you saved?

And they really wouldn't think anything of it even if they weren't and said no.

But today in more and more, you asked that question to people on the street, people who are unchurched, are you safe?

They take offense at that.

What do you mean I need to be saved?

They don't like that word more and more in our culture.

I've been wondering why.

Why is that?

Why is that, that phrase, that biblical phrase has kind of fallen out of favor and I was thinking just yesterday.

Do you remember, do you remember that ad campaign?

I think it was primarily, you know about 10 10 years ago.

It was for life alert, you know, life alert, that little device that you wear around your neck and it's got a button and if you, if you need medical attention or help you press the button.

Do you remember the ad campaign?

It would show usually an elderly person, they just slipped getting out of the bathtub or something like that or the laying in a hall somewhere.

And what was the catch phrase?

Help.

I fallen and I can't get up now you know, even you chuckling about that show proves my point here.

That ad campaign, I don't know if it's sold a lot of life alerts, but it became the butt of so many jokes.

You know how many late night television programs have you watch where they make fun, where they mock that ad and that phrase, I've fallen and I can't get up.

Why?

Because I think it's this, and I think this ties in for why this idea of being saved is becoming more and more offensive.

The reason that people mock that ad is because we despise being helpless.

We don't want to be that lady lying outside the shower saying, I fallen and I can't get up.

We don't want to be that physically.

We don't want to be that financially and we certainly don't want to be that spiritually.

We don't like being dependent.

We don't like being dependent financially.

We don't like being dependent medically.

We don't like being dependent spiritually.

We are workspace pers.

People at our core, we want a formula.

You tell me what I need to do for financial success, for family success, for, for physical success, for spiritual success, and I'll do it.

You tell me what it takes to be right in the eyes of God and I will do it by my own efforts, by my own abilities.

We don't want to be that helpless person and yeah, that is exactly what we are, which is why I think that phrase has become more and more offensive because people don't want to be told, even if they know it deep down, they don't want to be reminded that spiritually apart from Christ, we are lost.

We are helpless, we are totally dependent.

We are unable to do anything to save ourselves, but we need to be saved.

And if you're here this morning and you think that somehow you can work a formula to be right before God, I'm here to tell you this morning, no, you're lost and you need to be saved.

We need to be safe first of all, from our slavery to sin.

And I know that's a loaded word in this culture, but that's the word, the phrase that Jesus uses.

Matthew eight 34 Jesus says, I say to you, everyone who practice sin is a slave to sin and let me be the one to bear the bad news to you.

We all practice sin.

There are all of us.

It's, it's unique.

It changes, it changes form.

And depending on our circumstances and and who we are.

But we all have those areas of our life where we habitually fall into sin and apart from Christ, what Jesus is telling us is you may think you've got a handle on that area of your life.

You may think UBA may be able to stop at any point.

You may think that you have that under control.

You may think that it's not too bad.

You may think that it's not hurting other people.

You may think that other people don't know, but in reality, you're chained to that sin.

You can't escape that apart from Christ.

No matter how hard you try, you may think you can, but you can't.

You are a slave to sin.

Victor Hugo, you may know him as the author of the hunchback of Notre Dame, he, he wrote another novel that's less well known.

It's called toilers of the sea.

And there's a crucial scene in toilers of the sea or one of the main characters whose occupation is, he's a pilot of a ship, a ship that carries people from point to point, uh, along the coast of an ocean and his center, probably one of many of his sins, but his, his consuming sin is his greed.

And so at a crucial scene in the book, the ship that he is piloting that is filled with people, it runs a ground in the fog on the rocks along the shore.

And so he has the lifeboats, dispatched, and he has all of the passengers and all of the crew get into the lifeboats so they can be saved and they go to shore will.

In reality, that wasn't just an accident.

He intentionally crashed the ship on the rocks.

Why?

Because he knows that all the wealthy people that were on the ship on that voyage, put their valuables, put their, their money in the ships safe.

And so after he sends off all the passengers and the crew, he empties the contents of the safe and puts it in his pockets.

Now he's left without a lifeboat, but he thinks we're not that far from shore.

I can jump off, I can swim the shore.

He thinks he's got it made.

He thinks he's not going to be caught.

He thinks he's going to get away with what is is really the desire of his heart.

He jumps into the sea.

He sinks a little bit because of the weight of all these loaded his pockets with, but he starts to swim.

He thinks I got it made.

I'm going to be able to swim the shore and then he feels something grab his ankle and it is the tentacle of an octopus, a large octopus and those tentacles grab him and grab his legs and pull him down down, down into the sea to his death.

That is what your and my sin is like.

We may think we can get away with it.

We may think that we can rise to the surface and be free of it.

We may think that it's not going to harm us, but that consuming sin and our slavery to that consuming sin is like that octopus pulling him down, down, down to death, to our spiritual death.

We cannot be free from the grip of sin.

We need to be saved.

We cannot free ourselves.

And Jesus came to save us from our sin, from our slavery to sin, not only from our slavery to sin.

He came to save us from the consequences of our sin.

Because while in that novel, the consequences of that man's greed were physical death.

The consequences we're told is of sin apart from Christ is we perish to spiritual death.

Not just physical death, but even worse spiritual death.

And so second Corinthians two, Paul points this out, everybody.

Everybody here, everybody in the world, you fall into one to two categories.

You either are one of those who are being saved because you've embraced Christ or you are one of those who are perishing.

And the thing about those who are perishing as it's kind of like people partying on a train that's barreling down the tracks towards the edge of a cliff, that they, even if they're told that there is a cliff, that the train is going to go off.

They're in denial.

They are enjoying the party on the train, but they are perishing even if the train has not reached the cliff yet, that's the state of every one of us.

If we've not embraced Christ and are being saved by Christ, we need to be saved from the consequences of sin and that is exactly what Jesus Christ came to do to save us from our slavery to sin, to save us ultimately from the consequences of our sin.

So Jesus came to earth by Virgin birth and he came to save us from our sins.

How do these two come together?

That leads to our last point.

Jesus is able to save us from our sins because of his Virgin birth.

The Virgin birth of Jesus Christ is absolutely essential to his ability to save us, to offer salvation for us.

Why can I say that?

Because the Bible tells us our predicament, the predicament of every one of us born into the world.

Romans five 12 it says, when the very first man Adam, when he sinned, when he decided, God, I'm going to do my own thing my own way.

Sin entered the world.

Adam's sin brought death and so death spread to everyone for everyone's sin.

[inaudible] it's like an infection.

I know that's not a, that's not a strong enough image, but it's the best image I can think of.

Imagine some kind of deadly, deadly flu that that from one person spreads throughout the entire population, not only infects the entire population and infects every generation coming from that population, so everybody on earth is infected and going to die from that flu and every child that is born to everybody on earth is infected with that and going to die from that flu.

That is how Adam's rebellion, Adam's desire to live life his own way without God spread to all of us.

Now, that means there's no one born into the world.

Not you, not me.

Not anyone who is not infected by sin, who does not have at the core of who they are, that desire to live life their own way apart from God.

No human being has ever come into the world without being infected by sin, until Jesus, until Jesus.

Remember how the pattern of the genealogy and Matthew chapter one is broken?

In verse 16 Jesus or Joseph is not the father of Jesus.

Joseph was the husband of Mary.

We're told who gave birth to Jesus, but he's not the father of Jesus.

And so this truth that Jesus did not have a human father, it means that that line of descent from Adam is interrupted.

It is broken.

Jesus did not descend from Adam in the same way that you and I and other human, every other human being does descends from Adam, and so Jesus was not infected by sin.

He comes as a perfectly righteous man, fully God and fully man lives a perfectly righteous life that makes him an effective sacrifice.

No human being, not not the best human being that you could think of could come and offer themselves as a sacrifice because of that infection of sin, but Jesus could because that infection had not infected him.

He was fully human because of his ordinary human birth by his mother Mary, but he was fully divine because of his conception by the Holy spirit and the result of this is described by Luke Luke one 35 therefore, the child to be born will be called Holy.

Only a Holy one, only a perfectly sinless man could offer himself as a substitutionary sacrifice to cover our sentence, and that is exactly what Jesus did.

Second Corinthians five 21 ma, one of my favorite verses in all of the new Testament for God made Christ who never sinned to be the offering for our sin so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

That's the gospel.

That's the gospel.

That's, that's what Christmas is leading to.

That is the gospel, the good news.

Have you embraced that?

Have you embraced that?

Have you embraced who Jesus is and what he did for you because of who he is.

Paul Harvey tells the story of a, of a man, a decent man, a good man by the world's standards, but a man who just really couldn't believe all this stuff, this Christmas story about God coming to earth as a man.

And one Christmas Eve, his family was going to go to church for the Christmas Eve service.

And uh, they invited him as they always did and he politely declined.

He didn't, wasn't going to go with them and pretend to believe in something that he really didn't believe in.

So he stayed home in the comfort of his warm living room while his family went off to church.

This happened somewhere North of Memphis because it was snowing that night and a snow storm was coming in.

So he's in his living room and he's reading his paper and he begins to hear a thump, thump, thump.

And it sounds to him like somebody throwing snowballs against the big picture window in his living room.

And so he opens the front door and looks out to see what is going on.

And what he discovers is this flock of birds because the snow is coming down so hard, his become disoriented by the snow and they're trying to find some place of shelter someplace warm and thinking that they are seeing the light of his, his living room through the window thinking they could get in there.

They're the thumping against the window and now this flock of birds is lying fluttering in his front yard.

Well, he's a compassionate man and he thinks, well, you know, I can't get these birds in the house, but we have a barn out back and it's even a heated barn and I can turn on the light.

So he opens the barn doors and he turns on the lights and he thinks if they will just fly in there, there'll be warm, there'll be safe from the rest of the storm and they'll make it while he opens the barn doors.

But the birds don't go in there and he thinks, well, maybe I can lure him into it.

So he gets some breadcrumbs and he leaves a trail of breadcrumbs from where the birds are to the barn door leading into the barn, but the birds just ignore it and then the next he tries to shoot a try and heard the bar, the birds into the barn, and that's about as effective as you think it might be.

It's like hurting cats.

The birds just flutter away from him and then kind of come back to their place and the snow and he's just at the end of himself.

These birds are going to die if they stay in the snow in this storm and there their present state.

There's this place of safety and warmth and yet I can't get him to go in there where they will be safe and warm and secure.

He thinks what?

What is it going to take?

If only I could communicate with these birds in some way, they can trust me, then I'm not going to harm them.

I'm here to actually help them.

I'm here to actually save their lives.

How could I do that?

And then he has the thought, if only I could become a bird, if I could become a bird, I could be among them.

I could mingle with them.

I could speak their language.

I could tell them they don't need to be afraid.

I could show them the way to warmth and safety of the barn.

I could save them from perishing if I was a bird among them.

At that moment, the church bells in the distance rang, began to ring for Christmas Eve and as he sat there thinking about that desire to be a bird to save these birds, and he heard the bells pealing the good news of Christmas, he sank to his knees in the snow.

John three 16 for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Glory to God in the highest that's pray.

It stretches our human understanding what you did, Lord God.

It stretches even our human understanding, Lord Jesus, that you would leave your glory in heaven and come and take the form of a man and live among us and endure all that you did ultimately leading to the cross.

We are so thankful that you did.

Lord, we just cry out to you.

We are needy people.

We need to be saved.

We are helpless spiritually.

We can do nothing to contribute to our salvation.

We need to be saved and we thank you, Holy God, and in your wisdom you, you determine that this is how you're going to save us and you sent Jesus into the world.

You sent the son perfectly Holy, fully God and fully man, and you did it through the Virgin birth.

We thank you for using that innocent teenage girl, Mary, we thank you for using that righteous man.

Joseph, we thank you that you did this and that is what Christmas is all about and that is what the gospel is all about.

Or Jesus, all as we can do is respond like the angels did glory to God and the highest.

Amen.