God With Us | Matt 1:18-25

Good morning and merry Christmas.

We are brought today in Matthew chapter

one to a passage that could be preached

on any Christmas often times but it's

where we happen to be in Matthew chapter

one and

this morning is God with us taken from

one of the names of Jesus Emmanuel which

means God with us and the This morning's

sermon is that man's rebellion and sin

have kept man separated from God. Christ

came to save us from our sins and

restore peace with God. Our first

parents, Adam and Eve, initiated a

rebellion against God, a war with God.

Their sin was more than just chocolate

and fruit in the market. Their sin was

an act of war. Satan had told them that

if you eat of decree, you will be as

gods. You will be autonomous. You'll get

to declare right and wrong for yourself.

That's the concept of a god. Not that

they would be omnipotic, but that they

would be autonomous, self-ruuled. And to

the very day, the heart of man wants to

be independent from God. Sure, we want

God to bless us and give us happy and do

nice things for us. But the overall

disposition of man is one of rebellion,

one of a war with God. Every parent

knows you can't enjoy sweet fellowship

with a child that is throwing a fit,

right? Every parent knows this. If a

child is grumpy and has an angry

disposition and is throwing the fit, at

that moment, you still love your child,

but you don't like your child at that

moment.

on the floor pounding the pavement,

throwing a fit, embarrassing you in

front of the whole shopping mall. At

that moment, do you love your child?

Yes. Would you take a bullet for that

child? Yes. But do you like that child?

No. That child is a miserable person to

be with. And so it is. Even in marriage

relationships and families, when there

is rebellion, when there is war, there

isn't

Christ came to restore that fellowship

with God. He came to the rebellion. But

also there's another issue. Man has

accumulated a debt. What we owed God was

our loving loy lo loyal obedience. What

have we done instead? We have sinned. We

have not given him that which is rightly

given to him. And therefore we owe a

debt that we cannot pay. So in this

passage we will see Jesus call by two

names. One Yeshua. Jesus mean the

salvation

he shall save us from our sins that he

will pay the sin debt that we all know

and his other name Emmanuel

which he was never called by in his

earthly life that is ever recorded means

God with us because that is what he is

not a mere man but God the creator God

the word having taken on humanity

voluntarily God the creator became part

of creation

so that he could live a life as both God

and man. And as a man as all of we are

and yet never sin so that when he died,

he pays the debt that all of us owe. He

came to pay our debt. That's the God

man. If you now stand with me and read

from God's word, we're reading from

Matthew chapter 1 starting in verse 18.

Matthew 1 · chapter mention

She was found to be with a 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. He will bear a son and you shall

call his name Jesus for he will save

their people from their sins. All this

took place to fulfill what the Lord has

spoken by the prophet. Behold the virgin

shall conceive and bear son. They shall

call his name Emmanuel which means God

with us. What when Joseph woke from the

sleep instead of the angel the Lord

commanded him. He took his wife but knew

her not until she had given birth to a

son and he called his name.

Oh Lord God, we thank you that Jesus the

God man came to bear our sins in himself

to restore peace with God. We thank you

Lord that being justified by faith we

have peace with God. We thank you, Lord,

that through the work of the Holy

Spirit, you come to dwell in us and

restore fellowship between God and man.

Lord, I pray for anyone here that has

yet to know you, that you would touch

their heart this morning, that you would

draw them to yourself and repentance,

that they put their faith in Jesus

Christ and receive the forgiveness of

sins. And I pray for all of us who know

you that Lord, you would you would

develop in us a greater year to walk

closely with you, that you would you

right now in Jesus name I pray. Amen.

You may be seated. So yes, we see here

in the end of our passage that Jesus

when he was born was called Jesus. But

never in his life do we read that he is

called Emmanuel because Emmanuel is

really a statement in the very first

chapter of Matthew of what he is. Not

just who he is but what he is. Jesus is

God with us. We rightly worship him.

We're told in the second commandment.

We're not to worship anything in heaven

above or anything in the earth below or

in the waters under the earth. He's

created things, but we're only to

worship God. In the book of Matthew, we

will see men worshiping God at various

points. And God not rebuking them, but

rather honoring Christ with a miracle.

Like in Matthewapter, the leper comes

and worships them. And the people surely

How can you how can this man, if he's a

man of God, allow a leper to worship

him? And not only did Jesus not uh

rebuke him, Jesus allows him to worship

him and proceed to touch him, another

good forbidden thing to do, such a

leper, but instead of him becoming

filming unclean, the leper is made

clean, demonstrating indeed Jesus is God

with us. We'll see Jesus referring to

himself as the judge in Matthew chapter

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

7. But God is called the judge of all

the earth like uh Genesis 18. Jesus

divinity is a central theme of the book

of Matthew. He's no mere teacher. He is

God with us. He is the God man. But he

is also truly man. He's not just an

apparition. He truly was born of a

woman. He was human and everything that

it means to be human other than a sin

nature. Jesus was human as well as

divine. He met the challenges that he

faced as a man. So many times you'll

you'll see Jesus handling things as as a

man and not simply taking the God back

up. For example, when Satan says, "If

you are the son of God," calling into

question his divinity,

"Turn these stones into bread. Could

Jesus have done that? Of course he

could. He walked on water. He he raises

the dead. He he changes water into wine.

It would have been no difficult thing

for Jesus to turn the stones into bread.

But in the temptation, in the testing,

he is facing the challenge as if he was

the children of Israel in the

wilderness. God humbled and taught them

that man.

He's facing the challenge as we face the

challenge. He's facing the challenges.

Adam faced it in a garden templed with

food. Jesus is tempted with food in a

wilderness. But whereas Adam failed and

Israel failed and we have failed, Christ

prevailed, demonstrating he is the God

man who lives for us, who died for us,

who rose for us and makes intercession

for us. He is both God and man.

Now, I have pointed out in every sermon

up to this point in some way that the

book of Genesis is alluded to and

pointed in Matthew 1. And in future

weeks, I'll tell you that Matthew 2 has

an Exodus, Matthew 3 has a Leviticus,

Matthew 4 has a book of Numbers, Matthew

57 has another giving of the law. This

is a pattern in the book of of Genesis.

And again, I'm going to show you that

here.

a theme of of Genesis that the problems

that we see coming in Genesis, Genesis

origin, the origin of man, the origin of

man's sin, the origin of rebellion, we

see it in Genesis. And now in Matthew,

we see the solution that Jesus is the

promises fulfilled. Jesus is the

solution to man's rebellion. We see the

solution to our sin. So let's look again

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place

in this way. When his mother Mary had

been referred to Joseph, before they

came together, she was found to be with

child from the Holy Spirit. All right.

So again, this word birth in Greek, the

original reader would have picked up on

this. The word is Genesis or Genesis.

It's the same title as the book in the

Greek. So it's really the ministers of

Jesus Christ took place in this way. And

I think this is a very intentional thing

in Matthew. Now, someone said, "Well,

man, I wouldn't get that just reading

it." Listen, don't be discouraged. It

should encourage you. Um, number one,

the main things are the plain things.

The basic truth that Jesus is a God man

is very clear in English. The main point

is very clear in English, but it should

encourage you because if you choose to

go deeper, the Bible should never grow

old to you. And I I find that the longer

I studied, I continue to see things. You

can go deeper and deeper in it. You can

go deeper by by um by well, one just by

meditating upon it and looking at the

patterns, but also you can study

original languages. If you if you feel

bored with your Bible study, you can

study geography. You can stud

And and the more you study it, it just

brings out all kinds of riches. And as

an expositor of the word, that's what

I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to dig

I'm supposed to dig and hopefully bring

life from God's word to God's people. So

again, the Genesis of Jesus Christ took

place in this way. There's a little

illusion to the book of Genesis. And

what I want to show you is that um

Mary's name

Genesis.

Joseph's names back to Genesis. And the

Holy Spirit, where do we first read of

him from in the first chapter of

Genesis? So when we read uh so I'm going

to look at this verse again, but I want

to make this Genesis connection for a

good portion of the sermon where we see

the Holy Spirit. So what we're told,

let's actually first before I do that,

let's just look at really what it's

saying here. The birth of Christ came

this way that when Mary was betrod to

Joseph before they came together she was

found to be the child of the Holy

Spirit. One thing the main thing is that

Mary is a virgin.

She has not been fool around with

Joseph. She is chased and she is pure.

And the child that she has conceived is

not by a Roman soldier but by Holy

Spirit by God came upon Mary in a unique

way so that what she conceived

is born of God. That's main plain truth

that you can read in English clear as

day is the child Jesus did not have a

human father. Joseph was not the father,

nor was anyone else the father. But the

father is God.

The Holy Spirit comes upon her. Luke

Luke brings it out as the Holy Spirit

overshadowed her. And the the Greek word

is an illusion back to the way the Holy

Spirit dwelt over this tabernacle and

the wilderness. Holy Spirit was over the

tabernacle in such a thick way. And

that's where God's presence met with

God's people. That was the evidence that

God was with them. This pillar of fire

by night, door, cloud by day, they would

say, "God is with us as manifested by

the shikina glory over the tabernacle."

That's the word that Luke uses to say

that the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary

came upon her. What was conceived in her

is that the Holy Spirit so that she is

the mother of God. passes through her is

both God and man. She is not the source

of God the son. But what passed through

Mary was both God and man. It says that

God

is Mary. But now let's look at the Holy

Spirit and see what it says about him in

Genesis. First talk about the Holy

Spirit. He's often neglected as a person

of the Trinity I think. But here he is

in the first vers of the Bible. Genesis

Genesis 1:1

1:1. In the beginning, God created the

heavens and the earth. Who created the

heavens and the earth? God did. The

earth was without form and void, and

darkness was over the face of the deep.

And the spirit of God was hovering over

the face of the waters. And God said,

"Let there be light and there was

light." What is the Holy Spirit doing?

He's hovering over the face of the

waters. And he is there and

participating in the work of the triune

God in creation. God speaks and I'm just

taking one from the chapter because God

said let there be light and there was

light. He speaks it into existence. The

Holy Spirit is active in the work of

creation. Now what was there before

creation? Before there was even water,

there was God. God the father, God the

son, God the holy spirit. John chooses

to go back even earlier than Before

there was only things. In the beginning

was the word and the word was with God

and the word was God and the word later

on we're told in John 1, he became flesh

and dwelt among us. John John goes back

to before even Genesis John 1:1 takes

John 1:1

place before Genesis 1:1. Before God

Genesis 1:1

says let there be light, there was

already an eternal God. God the Father,

God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And

now here the Holy Spirit is active in

creation and bringing everything into

existence which is a Latin word that

means out of nothing.

Scientists not scientists not all lot of

scientists are believers. In fact the

fathers of modern scientists were

performed believers. They were they they

took God's word very seriously. Um

the Bible gives us the basic

suppositions to understand God's world,

right? Pantheism, the Hindu Hindu Hindu

religion, uh doesn't really give you a

framework for understanding the world.

It's it's God's word that does.

Evolution doesn't. You know, evolution,

the evolutionist will say, "Oh, we need

we need one miracle and everything else

can take place." You know, evolution

has it own belief in resurrection out of

out of death, out of out of nothing.

That's a that's a huge leap of faith

for the evolution. There's an explosion.

Where the explosion come from? There's

an explosion and everything came out of

the explosion. Everything was was

compressed into a dot as small as appear

at the end of it and suddenly exploded

for some unknown reason without any

outside force acting upon it.

Apparently, it exploded and everything

came out of nothing. That's a huge leap

of faith that every atheist has to

believe. And then mind came from non

mind

your brain is distinct from your

intelligence.

Not all matter has intelligence but your

brain has intelligence. Well evolution

by think that intelligence came from non

intelligence. That's a huge thing. And

then they before that they have to

believe that life came from non life

and they spend their lives trying to

create life in a costume to prove that

it didn't take intelligence to do it.

These are huge less and they cannot do

it. They cannot do it. They cannot

create life. They can't even hardly

create simple proteins. Um and it's a

long stretch from there being life.

Well, here we see The Holy Spirit

creating in Genesis one out of nothing.

An intelligent

trying God created everything out of

nothing. It's a miracle. And I bring

this up because literal theologians,

they care more about the opinions of men

than they do about the opinions of God.

And one of the doctrines and two God

creating everything with his word that

that uh that the old theologians try to

backpedal on and bow to the atheist with

is the virgin birth. They don't want to

believe in the virgin birth. But if you

believe if instead of believing that the

evolutionist theory that non-

intelligence created intelligence or non

created life and and nothing created

everything, if you reject those

ridiculous face conceptions, which they

are, and you take God's word, God, an

intelligent being awoke and you believe

it. It's not a hard It's not hard to

believe that the God that created

everything could create a virgin birth

and could allow Jesus to die and raise

him again. And in the end, God would

come again and judge the living and the

dead and bring us with him. If you

reject the faith as given to you in

scripture, you'll end up with some other

faith that is followed. Here we see the

Holy Spirit creating creation and now in

Matthew one we see the Holy Spirit

creating and Mary conceiving and Mary

the God of man. Okay. So there's the

Holy Spirit active in creation and

active in conception. All right. Now

Mary, where do we see Mary in Genesis?

Mary name means their rebellion. That's

a strange name. the birth of Jesus

Christ at Christmas when his mother Mary

had been bestowed to Joseph before they

came together she was found to be the

child

would you expect her to have some lovely

beautiful name

um like the word Naomi

which means pleasant and good would you

expect Mary the mother of the god man to

have a beautiful name some sweet

beautiful name

like I I would Especially

if there hadn't been if Mary wasn't the

mother of God. I I would never want to

name my child there. That's a weird

name. There are other alternative

meanings, but none of them are very

pleasant. The word mar in Hebrew is the

word bitter. And so it can literally

mean bitterness or it can mean

rebellion. And y Hebrew means another

name.

But that doesn't sound much better than

their rebellion.

So the ending of the word Miam is there

and Mar is there orient

Naomi which means pleasant in the book

of Ruth he says don't no longer call me

Naomi call me Mara call me Mary

because her husband had died her son had

died she's a widow every she lost

everything call me call me Mara call

And what is the name of the mother of

God in Christ?

Either bitter or rebellion. It's much

more of rebellion. This is actually a

very common name as Jesus was a common

name. There are six of them in the New

Testament. Mary the mother of Jesus,

Mary Magdalene, a woman from Magdala,

Mary the sister of Lazarus and Martha,

Mary of the mother of James, Mary the

mother of son of Mark, the sister of

Barnabas, Mary

was greeted by Paul in Romans 16:6. Very

Romans 16:6

common name. There were there were a lot

of people I believe at that time

mourning the loss of uh one of the sons

of David to sit on the throne. They

recognize they're being conquered by

Rome with the judgment of God. They

recognize that that ever since the

carrying away of the Babylon, they're

living under the burden of their sins

and the burden of the rebellion. So for

some reason people at the time of Christ

there were a lot of people naming their

daughters Mary their rebellion perhaps

as a as a penitence I don't know but

going back to my thesis of Genesis where

do we see this theme in Genesis? Well,

right off the bat in Genesis chapter 3,

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

in Genesis chapter 3, now the serpent, a

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

satanic figure,

Sarah was more crafty than the other.

And the Lord that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, "Did God actually

say you not eat of the tree of the

garden?" And the woman said to the

serpent, "You may eat of the fruit of

the trees in the garden, but God said,

you shall not eat of the fruit of the

tree that is in the midst of the garden,

neither shall you touch it to die." But

the serpent said to the woman, "You will

not surely die. For God knows that when

you eat of it, your eyes will be open,

and you will be like God, knowing good

and evil." So the original temptation,

Eve knows what he's doing. He knows. And

Adam knows the commandments. We've been

told you're not eating the tree or you

will surely die. But Satan says God is

holding out on you. If you listen to God

and those old traditional values and you

know God's just a big cosmic killjoy and

God doesn't want you having sex outside

of marriage and God doesn't want you

getting drunk and God doesn't want you

having any fun. That's kind of the way

Satan says it. But God's commandment is

given because it's good for us. God's

law is good for us. But Adam and Eve to

be as God,

a big boy, a big girl doing their own

thing, rebaring against their father and

their creator and and so he entices

them, you will be as God, knowing good

and evil. This is a treasonous

temptation to rebel against God.

So when the woman saw that the tree was

good for food, that it was a delight for

the eyes, and that the tree was desired

to make one wise, she took of its fruit

and ate, and she also gave to her

husband who was with her, and he ate.

Now we see their rebellion.

Mary means their rebellion. We see our

first parent. They were created perfect,

but we see their rebellion.

They thought it was freezing. It was

good for food, good for the apple. It

was it was it was pleasant to the eyes.

Oh, it's so pretty, so fine.

And that it was desirable to make one

wise, the pride of life. Peter speaks of

the lust of the eyes, the lust of the

flesh, and the pride of life. All

encapsulated in this one temptation to

be as God. And so they took and they

ate. That is their rebellion.

Then the eyes of both of them were

naked. They knew that they were naked.

And they sewed fig leaves together and

made themselves wors. And they heard the

sound of Yahweh Elohim walking in the

garden in the cool of the day. And the

man and his wife hid themselves from the

presence of Yahweh Elohim among the

streets of the garden. So what is the

state of man then and afterward? Man

hiding themselves from God

and from each other. The rebellion

brings disunityity and lack of peace not

only with the creator but with each

other. Man was before the man and the

woman live in harmony and unity. There

was no power dripping. There was no

disrespect or reverence. It was a a

loving unity that they moved. They moved

as one. And now because rebellion has

come into the world shame come into the

world.

There's guilt in there. Guilt feelings.

There's nakedness of body, which there

was before. And there's nakedness of the

soul. The desire to hide the true nature

of who they are. They're hiding from

each other. Intimacy is destroyed by

their their sin. They're they're lying

to themselves. They're lying to God.

They're lying to each other. That is the

state of man in their rebellion. Sinners

hiding from a holy dawn. God had come to

walk with them

because At this point, God is with them.

Emmanuel, God is with them on a daily

basis. God comes to fellowship with them

and walk with them. They have

relationship. They have harmony. But now

that rebellion has entered them, God

will depart from them.

He will leave him with a promise

that the seed of the woman will crush

the circumcis.

All right.

And her husband Joseph being a just man

and unwilling to put her to shame

resolved to divorce her quietly. I was

thinking about Joseph the other day

thinking about this in this text. First

of all, we're told that he is a man. He

isn't a man that doesn't care

from your vantage point.

this woman that he was betrod. What does

betro mean? But some of in Hebrew

culture the marriage contract took place

years before the consummation of the

marriage. If a woman was found to be

adulterous in the Old Testament, they

could be stoned for fooling around after

maturity. If they were a nonmature

virgin, then the father had a couple

choices. You could say, "Well, now you

have to marry my daughter because you

can follow my daughter." And and you're

good. Or or he could say to the young

man, okay, you you don't go around with

my daughter, you got to pay three years

wages and you can't marry my daughter.

There's very serious penalties in

ancient Israel for fornication. But if

she was betrayed, she was legally

married even though no conf

the the Hebrew republic is gone. living

under the tyranny of Rome and nobody but

without Roman consent there is no death

penalty that's why the woman caught in

adultery in John chapter 8 would have

John 8 · chapter mention

said the reason it was a trap is that he

would have condemned her and called for

her execution they could have said aha

you're leading a rebellion against Rome

same thing as if if if a group of people

today said we're going to have a

lynching and and somebody it would be

seen as um acting outside the

jurisdiction of the

But anyway, at this time, you're not

putting people to death for adultery,

but but at the same time, Joseph cares.

Joseph is a just man. He's been probably

working for years to save up the

in order to or maybe the already been

given. I'm not quite sure about that,

but he's a dolly has been given to the

family. The contract has been made and

he's looking forward to the day that he

gets it.

looking forward to it. And now he hears

she found a child. She's a just man.

But we also see he's a compassionate

man. He's unwilling to put her to shame.

He has sympathy. He's compassionate

towards

my heart. I care for her.

I don't want to put her to but I'm also

not threaten to go forward the way they

are. So man, he resolves the divorce

quietly. He is a just man. He's compent

man and not vengeful. He doesn't want to

have the public.

He's like family's going to have to

handle this, but I don't want to make a

scream. So those three those three

attributes of him being just

compassionate and nonventual. He could

have had a public divorce.

This woman this woman I I I did my part.

I've been faithful. He's been faithful

to me. I want her disgraced.

I'm embarrassed. I want her disgraced.

How could she do this? He doesn't. He's

non vengeful. He's compassionate and

this is very much attribute of where the

end of

fact

I was going to bring it forward.

I should have put it in notes, but I

didn't. The name of Joseph's father's

father's name was

Yeah. Jacob. Who said Jacob? One of the

kids said Jacob. Joseph's father's name

was Jacob. The Joseph in Genesis is the

son of Jacob. That's not an accident.

That's God orchestrating history to tell

a story because the book of Genesis ends

with Joseph bringing his sons down into

Egypt. What we'll see in chapter 2 is

Joseph take Jesus down into Egypt. But I

get ahead of myself, but I want you to

see the end of Genesis one more time.

And even though we were preaching in

Genesis and we did this passage a month

or two ago, um, let's look at it. Let's

look at Genesis 50 again. I'll try to

read through it quickly, but look at the

quality. He is known for his justice and

he's known for his compassion and his

non

Joseph. All right. Verse 15, the last

chapter of Genesis. When Joseph's

brothers saw that the father was dead,

Joseph, they said, "It may be that

Joseph will hate us and pay aside for

all the evil that we

see opportunity to take vengeance on to

divorce us publicly." Right? So they

sent a message to Joseph saying, "Your

father gave this command before he died.

Say to Joseph, please forgive the

transgression of your brothers and their

sins because they did evil to you. And

now please forgive the transgression of

the servants of the God of your father."

Joseph up. When they said to him,

his brothers also came and fell down

before him and said, "Behold, we are

your servants." But Joseph said to them,

"Do not fear, for am I in a place of

honor. As for you, human evil against

me, that God meant to bring about that

many people should be kept alive as they

are today. So do not fear. I will

provide for you and your little ones."

Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly

to them.

I will provide you and take care of you.

What is the role of Jesus of Joseph in

the life of Jesus?

He is his earthly father.

He is his provider and protector who

will help him to avoid the evil of

protecting him by taking him into Egypt

just like Joseph does at the end of the

book of

timely.

So Joseph remained in Egypt. In his

father's house, Joseph lived 110 years.

Joseph's garden, children of the third

generation. The children also of Nashir,

the son of Manasseh, were counted as

Joseph. And Joseph said to his brother,

"I am about to die. God will visit you,

visit you, and bring you up out of this

land to the land that he swore to

Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." And

Joseph made the sons of Israel swear

saying God will surely visit you and you

shall carry up my bones from here. So

Joseph died years old and he

twice he says will visit you will visit

you. What's his other name?

God will visit you. Jesus is the

visitation of God for his people to

bring out deliverance in Exodus and

bring us to the promised land.

It's a theme,

not reading into it. No man can do this.

This is God's work.

God wrote this book. Every word of it.

Let's get back to what Matthew says.

But he Joseph, consider these things.

Behold an angel Lord appeared in saying,

Joseph, son of David, do not fear to

take Mary as your wife. For that which

is conceived in her 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 s.

What's been confusing her is from

He will bear and you shall call his name

for he will save your people from

it's interesting that's also a name

I might get into that later Jesus is the

same name as the one that brought them

through the promised land the book will

end with Jesus

then go and hear the

He's the new covenant Joshua believing

salvation

and specifically he will save his people

from their sins. Because what do we see

in Genesis? man sitting in against God

acquiring a sin dead and Jesus came to

save us from our seding

the serpent's head on rock between the

skull after Jesus crushed the serpent's

head

all this to fulfill what the Lord had

spoken by the prophets behold the virgin

shall conceive and bear a son and they

shall call his name

which means God will come. Okay. The

main point of this whole text, all of

this I've read up here, even though

there's Genesis, the main point is clear

for every English reader, and that is

that Jesus conceived not by human

parentage, but by the Holy Spirit in the

womb of Mary is in fact God in flesh

with us. God with us. All of this, all

of this was to bring about

a prophecy. God's return.

Now, I debate whether or not to go into

the prophecy. I think I have to. I'm

going to go ahead. I'm going to read in

Isaiah. Now, what what vers he quoting

here? It's almost worthy of a whole

sermon. Um, I don't think I will,

though. I'll read it and give you a

quick explanation of some things going

on. Isaiah 7 verse 10. Here's the spoken

Isaiah 7:10

by Isaiah. And then the Lord spoke to

Ahab, ask the sign of the Lord your God,

let it be deep as he or

Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will

not put the Lord to the test. And he

said, then David, is it too little for

you to weary men that you my God also?

Therefore, the Lord himself will give

you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall

conceive and bear and shall call his

name Emmanuel.

Now there are people who would say this

word should be translated virgin based

upon the Hebrew word as later said that

the word means young woman but I want

you to notice firstly the word prophet

Isaiah speaks to a sign of the lord

that's the signal

hell but it is high as heaven

not a little sign that's a big big sign

something that would be extremely

impressive said, "Go at it. Ask me to do

something grand grandio,

you know, make the sun stand still or

something incredible, right?"

Oh, no. I won't put the Lord to the

test.

I won't put the Lord to the test. He

says, "Okay, then

now

young women, what kind of young

all the time.

Uh and yet what what follows is it goes

on and there is kind of an immediate

fulfillment which the prophet's wife has

his son before the do certain things. So

there is a type of fulfillment but the

original readers reading this they first

of all I I want to point out the Greek

which was written 300 years before

Christ was a long time

in the Greek the word you translated the

virgin cannot translated as a woman. It

can only be translated as

a virgin

only translated to the virgin. They were

very aware of the Hebrew word and they

were aware of whatever type of shadow

fulfillment took place in the days of

Isaiah. And that when they translated

the word,

they did not use the word young woman,

but they used the word virgin because

that's what it was until afterwards when

Jews kind of rewrote the language a

little bit to make no link to the virgin

birth. But just look at the context. The

original reader is reading this and

saying, "Well, a woman that didn't

and before they're a certain age, the

Assyrians doing certain things, this is

what follows afterwards in the

that there's a greater sign than what

took place in the days of Isaiah. And

now Matthew saying, you've been waiting

for that virgin to conceive and now it's

the virgin conceived and brought about

our salvation.

Back to Matthew one. When Joseph woke,

he did as the angel Lord commanded him

and took his wife but knew her not until

she had given birth to a son and called

his name Jesus.

So when he woke the he did he did he

went ahead and he took the life I don't

know would have been up or not but

they're like okay her she's pregnant

we don't know what happened

and he takes her and

And when the child was born, he called

his name Yeshua.

And we come to know him as Emanuel

because God is who he is. He is God with

us. Lord and the world the world will

you got to believe something. You're

either

you're you're either going to have your

faith presupposition supplied to you by

the God who witnessed these things or

you're going to believe

Look at me. Then look at rocks and I

said, "Oh, that rock was so many billion

million years old." I remember when I

was in high school, I had a few

beautiful arrowheads and they weren't,

you know, two of them were incredible. I

work on it was pretty amazing. And one

of them I looked at like I'm not 100%

sure if it's not. It looked like it had

it wasn't arrowhead. It was something

else to play. It looked like it had, you

know, some chicks on it like human

manufacturing. like something that

worked out. I love so I took them into

my history class because of what we were

studying at the time and uh the teacher

said, "Hey, can I can I take these and

show them to somebody like an expert?"

He brought it back to me. This one this

one was it was so beautiful. The thing

had originally first thing that happened

I put in my pocket

kind of

a sharp point on my pocket

and then uh the teacher was passing

around.

I got like three pieces of it at home

but yeah made me want to cry. But

anyway, the the expert came along and

says, "Oh, this one, the most beautiful

one, it's like several hundred years

old. This one over here, this is 10,000

years old." And and this one is, you

know, even older than that because it

looks like a monkey. So, uh, all guess

work. All guess work. There's no

evidence. Yeah, there's people living.

You know what? There's still people

living under bridges in the city of St.

evidence that man started off as a

monkey with with a stick, you know,

poking on on seash.

That's all by faith. The whole narrative

that man started off as some kind of

chimpanzee and evolved into us is is a

leap of faith. And I would add it's a

huge leap of faith. Anybody in software

development knows that to add new

functionality to a software to an app,

you've got, you know, you got have

intelligence and it goes back and forth

in the past back and forth between

developers and testers and and teams

like millions of dollars to develop some

of these

and that's something

not even close

the material. They They know what's in

the cell. They know what the tree is

made of. They've got plenty of carbon

dioxide to borrow from God. They got

plenty of minerals in the dirt to borrow

from God. But they can't make one seed.

They can't make one tree. And yet they

think that random processes brought

about life. No. An intelligent God

designed every living thing. And every

DNA, every DNA is like worth of

information by God. It didn't happen by

accident.

And the God that did these things chose

to reveal himself through the prophets

in tell us what he did.

You can either take God's word for it or

the expert's word for it, but the

expert, the expert has many alternative

motives to tell you what he's telling.

For one, he doesn't want to lose the

funding. He gets big money for his

theory and by going along with the rest

of but but also what is Adam and Eve

doing when God is they're hiding in the

garden

they're not saying oh hey showed up big

problem we s we need salvation like

please forgive us no hiding from God

they're pretending like they didn't

believe their brain shifted it's the

woman you gave me Lord which means it's

your fault still Where did God put the

tree in the garden? None of your

business, man.

Our first rebel and we're still

rebelling.

Jesus came to stop their rebellion.

So what did he preach? First of all,

repentance is not merely saying here's

50 things I think I did wrong. And I'll

just say sorry to each one of them.

Repentance involves turning from our

sins towards God and submitting

ourselves to him. Adam hiding from God.

When we come and we acknowledge to God,

I confess I'm a sinner. I confess I've

been living without

and I need your forgiveness. I need your

compassion. No more finger pointing at

the woman that you're giving me. No more

blaming my parents or blaming society or

blaming poverty or blaming my hormones.

No more blaming.

I've been a rebel and I don't want to be

a rebel anymore. When we confess Jesus

as Lord, what are we saying? Saying from

here on out, I'm I am not a Lord God,

Captain. From here on out, I submit to

you.

I confess I believe in my heart and I

confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

is stopping the rebellion and saying I

surrender. That's that's the that's what

repentance is. It's a change of heart

and mind about what about our

relationship with God. We we confess and

we submit to him. And then second of

all, Jesus came to save us from our

sins. Even if we even if we were able

today to never sin again, we still be

like if today you cut off your credit

cards and you never put another dime on

them again. Well, great. You're not

adding to your debt, but you still got a

huge debt to pay, right? In the same

way, if you never sin again, you've

still blown it

and you will sin again. But Jesus came

to save us as Yeshua, as Jesus save us

from our sins.

He never sinned. Though we were tempted

as Adam and Eve were and as all of us

have been, as Israel was, he never

sinned. But he died as a foray.

And so by repentance and faith in Jesus

Christ, we end our faith for our sins.

And now

relationship is restored so that we can

say God with us fellowship restored

I multiple times already many times in

the book but the book of Matthew 10 I'll

read it again if I read it enough you'll

have it memorized if you don't already

Jesus came and said to them all

authority in heaven and on earth has

been given to me go therefor

of

disciples.

We're still obeying

them in the name of the Father and of

the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching

them to observe all that I have

commanded you. And behold, I am with

you, Emmanuel,

to the end of the age. Jesus has

promised to be with his church until the

mission is completed. How do you do

this? by the coming of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit we see in this chapter

coming over Mary and conceiving in her

God the Son. And what we're told by Paul

and others is when we come to faith in

Christ, it's because the Holy Spirit has

done a work in us just like he did a

work in Mary. Now in Mary, he he brought

about the physical God man in her. But

when we come to when we come to faith in

Jesus, it's because the Holy Spirit has

already been doing a work.

We're told Heal it. It'll take our our

dead stony hearts and replace it with a

heart of flesh and his spirit will

cleanse us from our sins. He gives us a

new heart. He writes his law and our

hearts into our mind. That's the work of

the Holy Spirit.

Salvation is more than signing your name

on a dotted line and say, "Yeah, sure.

I'll join this organization." Salvation

takes the work of the Holy Spirit. Just

like it took him at the work of

creation, just like it took him at the

work of incarnation. It takes the Holy

Spirit, it's a work of regeneration when

he takes a dead sinner and he gives us a

heart of faith. And so if you want him,

it's because he's already been working

in you.

And so my my admonition to you is if you

don't know him today,

follow that up by being

baptism is like it's a public.

It's our declaration of allegiance.

It's like our our wedding ceremony, but

it's a ceremony in which we we publicly

make our vows to God, confessing our

sins,

confessing our faith and confessing our

Lord and Savior. If you've done that,

you're welcome to take

and every

remember that and he is present

this year

all who call upon him and as s

not just to repent initially but to walk

in repentance.

God continue to fill with us our sins

and show us our insufficiencies and and

uh so as we prepare our hearts for

communion this morning bow your head

to the Lord confess the sins ask him to

search your heart if there's anybody you

need to make it right with all make it

right with them and partake with

thanksgiving because his body was broken

for you this blood is for you to save

you from

God, we thank you for your salvation. We

thank you for the forgiveness of sins.

We thank you that through the person of

the Holy Spirit, you are with us always.

That that Jesus is physically now at the

right hand of the father making

intercession for his people. That you

sent the Holy Spirit to be with us, to

us, to empower us, to comfort us in. We

thank you.