Well, listen, if you have your Bible, I want to invite you to Matthew chapter number one. To join me in Matthew chapter number one here today. We began our Christmas series last Sunday entitled The Road to Bethlehem. Can we all say that together? The road to Bethlehem.
And we are just, it's just a three-week series taking us all the way up into Christmas. And we are going to be looking. Last week we looked at the Old Testament prophets and how they were pointing to Bethlehem. And then today we are going to look at the perspective of Mary and Joseph, which we will look at here this morning. And then next week we will look at the shepherds as well.
And looking forward to that week of the series. And so Matthew chapter number one. We'll read and then I'll pray, and then we'll look at Mary and Joseph. And so, verse number 18 of Matthew chapter number 1, the scripture says this: Now the birth. Of Jesus Christ was on this wise Whenas his mother, Mary, was espoused to Joseph before they came together.
She was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privately. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, Thou son of David, Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. Verse 21, and she shall bring forth a son. And thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.
Now, all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophets, saying, Verse 23: Behold, a virgin shall be with child. and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. which being interpreted is God with us. Then Joseph, being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife. and knew her not till she had brought forth her first born son.
And he called his name Jesus. Father. Lord, we love you. And God, we thank you for your word. And God, we thank you for what your word says to us.
And this season, around the Christmas time, I pray, Father, that we could just take a few moments and focus in on the real meaning of Christmas. that each one of our hearts would be turned in your direction, recognizing the reason why you came, the reason why we celebrate, the reason why we have Christmas, and the reason why we have the hope. of Christmas. I pray, Father, that you would speak to our hearts, that you would fill each one of us with your Spirit, myself as I deliver the Word, but also every person that hears the Word today would be filled to receive it. And God, that you would just speak to our hearts.
Lord, if somebody has slipped in here today that does not know the hope. Of heaven does not know the hope that we have in Christmas, the hope that we have in this story. Father, I pray that today would be the day where they would leave here knowing Emmanuel. as their Lord and personal Saviour. God, speak to our hearts.
The reading of your word and the study of it, for it's in your name we pray. And all God's people said.
Okay. Amen and amen.
Well, here we have obviously the familiar Christmas story, Matthew chapter 1, leading us up to some of the days before Bethlehem when Jesus was born. And what you have here is Mary. And you have Joseph. And they are what it says here is spoused in verse number 18. And I want to kind of give you just a little bit of tradition of what that is in the Jewish tradition.
If you have a different translation, you might have the word betroth there. And here's what I'll tell you: basically, in the Jewish tradition, this was very common. And what would happen is that a man and a woman would legally get married. They would sign the papers, do kind of the legal side of things, but then they would not be allowed for an entire year to live together or to sleep together or anything like that.
So there was a whole year of waiting, even though they were legally already married. They were espoused, as the word says here in verse number 18. For that whole year, what they would do as a family unit is that they would prepare for the wedding feast. Weddings were a big deal in Jewish tradition. And so, after a year of waiting, they would have this massive feast centered around this wedding ceremony.
The feast, many times in Jewish tradition, would last up to seven days of a feast. And then, after that Jewish feast, then they could live together from that point on. And so here we find the story: Mary and Joseph, they were in this waiting period. They were not allowed to live together. They were certainly not allowed to sleep together.
And here, in this moment, even though they were legally married, they were waiting until the Jewish feast when, after that, they could end up living together. And here, while they were espoused, waiting to be married and to officially be able to live together, Mary. gets pregnant. Mary gets pregnant. Can you imagine?
How this would have made Joseph feel. And here, Joseph, you can imagine the confusion. the anger, the disappointment. That he had. And not only that, think about it.
If you were in their shoes, they knew what the prophets had said. And so they knew some of the Old Testament. But in this moment, they're probably like, really? Is this really what he had said? I mean, is this true?
I mean, the frustration that Joseph was thinking when Mary's like, hey, listen, I've never been with a man, but I am pregnant. Joseph's like, sure, like, really? Like, that's not possible. And can you imagine also on the flip side, the frustration that Mary probably felt? She's like, I'm telling you the truth, but the truth sounds so crazy, impossible, and out there that everybody doesn't believe her.
And she's trying to convince Joseph, and Joseph is frustrated and disappointed, thinking that this marriage is off. But it says that Joseph. was a just man. He was a good man. And because of that, he decided out of his kindness He decided, the scripture says that he was going to break this off.
in a private way. You say, why is that significant? Because Jewish tradition would say, because of this, that Mary, that you had every right to take Mary out into the streets. and stone her for this. And so Joseph, nobody would have argued against it.
Nobody would have questioned him if that was the decision that he made. And law would have supported it. And everybody in the community would say, yes, because of what she did, because they didn't know the truth and they didn't believe her. Everybody would have felt that was a justifiable decision. Offense.
Burr calls. But Joseph, because he was just, he decided that what he was going to do is just, you know, divorce her in a private way. That's what he means at the end of verse 19 when it said he was going to put her away privately. In other words, he's just going to say, hey, we're just going to break this off in a private way. I'm not going to embarrass you.
I'm not going to make you a public example in front of our community, in front of your family, your friends. I'm not going to do that. And so I'm just going to quietly end this contract, this marriage that we were in, and we'll just walk away from this, and all will be. Good.
Well, it was in that moment that an angel came to Joseph. In verse number 20. And this angel came to Joseph and began to tell him that he does not need to fear taking her as his wife.
Now, you can imagine the fear because think about it from Joseph's perspective. If he had just said, No worries, Mary, I'm going to marry you anyway, guess what everyone would have thought about him? That it was him. And that he had sinned as well and broken the law. And so, even marrying her, he was having to put himself out there.
And so the angel says, Hey, listen, Joseph, fear not. Take Mary to be your wife. Isn't it interesting that God chose this way? to bring salvation into the world. To bring Jesus into the world through a virgin.
We looked last week at the importance of the virgin birth. And the importance of why would Jesus Do this. And the reason, just to give you a little bit of an understanding about why the virgin birth is something that is a core doctrine of our faith. Is because since Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, from that point on, every single person that was born naturally. Every single one of them.
There was a sin nature passed from their fathers down to them.
So, every single person has ever sinned since Adam and Eve. And so, why is the virgin birth important?
Well, God was sending Jesus to be born naturally, but to be conceived supernaturally, so that he would bypass. The curse of sin that was passed from man to man to man, all the way down from the beginning. That's why the virgin birth is important because the only way that you and I could be saved was through a perfect sacrifice, was through a perfect lamb. It couldn't be a lamb with sin and with flaws. And so when God sent Jesus, he had to bypass that curse that had been passed down for all of humanity.
And so he had to supernaturally conceive through the Holy Spirit. Jesus To be born naturally. That's why it's important. But if you think about why, why this way? What's amazing to me in this story, if I was Joseph, and we don't have a record of this, in fact, Joseph never really speaks.
Follow his story. He never says anything. The only thing that we have that in our scripture today that Joseph said was at the end of our text here today, he says that he's going to call his name Jesus, right? And so that's the only words that we have that Joseph said or that is recorded that he said. And so, but if I was Joseph, here's what I would have said.
When the angel comes to me and says, Hey, Fear not. It's okay. Go marry Mary and you can be married. Here's what I would say. Hey, listen, I have no problem doing that, but can you go and make this same announcement to every single other person in the community?
Wouldn't you have felt the same way? Because now, Joseph, although that gives him peace of mind, but here's what I'm thinking the whole time: my family's not going to believe me. Our friends are not going to believe me. My job and my employer's not going to believe me. My community.
Everybody is just going to assume that it's my son and my child, and that I was the one who did this to Mary, and I've broken the law.
So, Angel, can you please go and make this same announcement to everybody else to give everybody a peace of mind? But the angel did not do that. This announcement messed up everything. For marrying And for Joseph. We cannot begin to grasp the responsibility and the change that they had.
This ruined their reputation. They had to literally leave everything behind and move, and all this stuff happened as a result. Of this baby being born. No doubt they were humiliated. No doubt they lost respect of people around them.
No doubt they were embarrassed. All of this because of Jesus. And here's what I'll tell you: there's a couple of things that, as I was studying this, I learned about following God. From Mary and Joseph. There's a couple of truths because every single one of us, we want to follow the Lord.
I believe that. You're here on a Sunday morning. I would assume that. And so you might have slipped in here, got invited, but I feel like you probably want to follow God in some capacity, regardless of where you at on your faith journey. And here's what I'll tell you.
There's a couple of things about Mary and Joseph that we learn about how they followed God. The first thing I want you to see, and if you take notes, this might be helpful, but the first thing is this, the nature of following God. What does following God actually look like?
Well, here's what I'll tell you. Just a couple of quick things, and then we're going to look at the strength behind what it took. For them to follow God here in this moment. But first, what did following God look like? There's two things about this that amazes me.
Number one, following God. It requires that we have total trust. and total obedience in him. We have total trust in him, and we have total obedience. Four.
Him. That's what we see here. You see, the virgin birth was prophesied. about and so they would have known this, but Humanly speaking, this was a complete impossibility. The virgin birth is a complete impossibility when you think of it from our humanistic perspective.
And here, this whole thing was completely impossible, but yet they still had to take a step of faith. In order to follow God here in this capacity. No man could explain it. No man could, you know, muster up enough words to actually describe what was happening. Can you imagine the journey as Mary and Joseph left and went to Bethlehem?
What they had to tell people on their way? It brought about so much confusion. It brought about so many questions. But yet they still took a step in following Jesus. Here's what I'm going to tell you: is that following God with your life, it requires that you have total trust and total obedience in Him.
Sometimes God's going to ask us to do things that make no sense. That can't be described by humanistic mindsets. We cannot describe, hey, why would God send you there? I don't know, but God's leading me there. There's been a lot of people that say no to what God is leading them to do.
Because they can't explain it. And sometimes God's going to call you to things that cannot be explained. And what we learned from Mary and Joseph is that if you really want to follow God and leave everything behind and go to him, it's going to require that you trust in whatever he is calling you to do, no matter how crazy it may sound. And you're going to follow him and be obedient to him regardless. But the second thing we learn about the nature of following God is following God will sometimes.
inconvenience us. We don't like to be inconvenienced, do we? I mean, some of us probably complained that somebody took our seat this morning, didn't we? We don't like to be shoved together. We don't like to be inconvenienced.
A lot of us come to the service where we have plenty of room. Around us. And here we are in here, kind of stuffed in here like sardines, right? We don't like to be inconvenienced in our life. I think that's true of every single one of us.
And here's what I'll tell you: for Joseph and Mary. The birth of Jesus, it changed and complicated everything for them. It messed up relationships with their family and friends, no doubt. We look at this like you know, thousands of years later. Wow, how cool would it have been to be the parents of the Son of God?
And we look at it like, wow, this is an amazing thing. But in that day. It was not that way. It was not perceived the way that you and I perceive Mary and Joseph today. In that day, it changed everything.
It ruined relationships. They had to flee their homeland. They gave up their home. They gave up their careers. They literally gave up everything to follow what this angel had told them about the baby that is now inside of Mary.
They followed him no matter what it took. but it inconvenienced everything about him. Here's what I've learned about following God.
Sometimes, when you say yes to whatever God is leading you to do. It's gonna probably inconvenience you just a little bit. You know, I think about stories like this with Mary and Joseph, and I wonder what it's going to be like when we get to heaven and we have conversations.
Now, this is fun. I think we're not going to have these conversations a whole lot, but just imagine for a moment. that, you know, the modern day church gets to heaven. And we're having a conversation with Mary and Joseph. And we're like, you know, up there, and we're saying things like, Can you believe when I was on earth, God was, or the pastor was asking me to serve in two services on Family Christmas?
Can you believe it? And I have things to do. I work during the week. I have no time to serve in the nursery. When I come on a Sunday morning, I just want to relax.
I just want to, I don't want to serve. I don't want to, are you kidding? They ask me to be there 30 minutes before the service starts. Can you believe that, Mary? What do you think about that, Joseph?
And then they're going to respond back to us and probably say. Really? Like, we gave up everything. We gave up our jobs to follow Jesus. Mary carried for nine months a baby that wasn't even hers.
And we gave up everything, we gave up our careers, we did all of this. And the point is, is like there's story after story after story in Scripture of people who said yes to whatever God was leading them to do. And one theme that always runs through anybody that says yes to God. Is it inconveniences them? It inconveniences them.
He leads them to do things that they have to leave things behind. And that's going to challenge them. And yet, today, here's what I'll tell you: is that some of us don't follow God because it inconveniences us. Sunday's for football. Sunday is not for a service.
Like, what? No, let somebody else serve. Let somebody else be a part of that. And whatever God is leading you to do, I'm telling you, if you want to follow God with your life, it's going to inconvenience you. It's going to challenge you, and he's going to ask us to do things from time to time.
That is not going to fit with your timetable. It is not going to fit with your Goals for your life. He's going to challenge that because what he is looking for is your heart. And when God has your heart. You're willing to give up everything.
When God has the innermost part of who you are, You're willing to give up, you're willing to leave anything behind. You're willing to give an hour. Of your time to serve. You're willing to get here early to serve. Why?
Because he has your heart, and when he has your heart, you want to be a part of something bigger than yourself. You want to be a part of something that God wants to do in and through you. But the problem is, a lot of us. We trust God with our eternal life, but we're like, No, I'm good for that. Like, I want to do what I want to do.
I want to control my schedule. I want to control my future. I want to control all these different things. And we're not willing to trust God with those things. But what we learn here about following God is sometimes It's going to inconvenience us.
And following God requires total trust and total dependence. in him. But have you ever asked this question that like where Where does the strength For like a Mary and Joseph, where does it come from? Like, how in the world, knowing that they would lose everything, knowing that they would lose respect? Knowing that, you know, all of this stuff, how in the world could they have ever stepped out and started journeying themselves down to Bethlehem?
How could they have ever left everything behind? Because this seems like a little far-fetched. What gave them the strength?
Well, I want to look at briefly the strength of following God. Where did this strength come from inside of them in order for them to step up? There's two things about the strength that I'm telling you. If you want to follow God with your life, this is where the power comes from, and this is where the strength always comes in to take a step in the direction of where God is leading you. The first thing we notice about Joseph and Mary is this.
Joseph and Mary believed that God would keep his promise. You want to know where that strength came from for them to take a step and start their journey? They believed that God would keep his promise. Look at our text here when the angel showed up. Here The angel showed up and said, Be whole.
And verse number 20. Behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying this. Joseph Thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And here's what the angel says. And she shall bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus.
For he shall save his people from their sins.
Now, all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophets, saying, verse 12. 23. Behold. Behold, One of my favorite uh words In Scripture is the word behold. It's really been on my heart.
I love songs with this word, especially around the Christmas season, because the word behold, it is a word with a strong, strong meaning. If you look this word up in the Greek, it's going to have something next to it that says that this is a word that we use or that they would use in this day and age to grab somebody's attention. It's like when you really want somebody to look, you're like, hey. Look at this. You're doing everything possible to get their attention so that they can look in the direction of what you are trying to get them to see.
And what we learn here is the angel, what the angel was trying to get Mary, or in this case Joseph, to actually see was a promise. In fact, this is the promise. If you were in our service last week, this is the promise we looked at from Isaiah chapter number seven last week. And so this angel is saying, Hey, look, Joseph, I know this doesn't make sense. I know that you're worried.
I know that you're devastated. I know you're thinking this is humiliating. I know you're hurt. But listen, I know it doesn't make sense, but I want you to see something. Behold this.
Let what I'm about to tell you grab every bit of your attention. Every single bit of your being, your focus, I want you to see this. Behold. And what he wanted him to see was this. A virgin shall be with child.
And shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. You see, the thing that the angel wanted Joseph to see was a prophecy that had been spoken of by Isaiah the prophet. 700 years ago.
Something that the Jewish people had heard about: that there was this king, King Ahaz, and he was a wicked king, and you know, the northern tribes of Israel was trying to invade, and this prophet came onto the scene named Isaiah. And he prophesied this: hey, one day a virgin will conceive. And bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name. Emmanuel. You see, what happens here in this moment Is the angel was saying, Hey, Fear not, Joseph.
You can still take Mary to be your wife. And you say, what gave him the strength to say yes to this? What gave him the strength and the courage to do it? Here's what it is: he believed. that what God said through the prophets seven hundred years ago will come to be.
You see, when we follow Jesus, here's what I'm going to tell you: is that really taking a step and following God with your life. It requires you to believe that what God has started and what God has said, that it will come to fruition. The application is simple. It's this, that the same God who kept a promise some seven hundred years apart from beginning to end, guess what? That same God's going to continue to keep his promises to you today.
And for us that are trying to follow God with our life, it's going to require, say, where has the strength come for these people to take a step out? It's because they believe that God still keeps his promises. You talk to anybody in here who's done big things for God when God has led them somewhere in the world to say yes to God. You say, How in the world could they do it? I guarantee you that one of the threads that they would say that kept things together was they believed that God would continue to keep his promise.
that God would continue to keep his promise, that he's going to protect them. That he's going to provide for them. That he's going to be with them. All the different promises that we see throughout scripture, what we have to realize is that following God, the strength of saying yes for God is simply found in believing the promises that you see. He has given us.
That's what we what we learn here. You know, for some of us. And if you're skeptical about things around church and stuff like that, here's what I'll tell you: what's amazing to me is that some of us try to build our case. Around if God exists, or build our case around if God is love and that God's going to keep his promises.
Some of us try to build our case around that to see how many times God has answered the prayers that we have prayed the exact way that we want. Here's why that's such a flawed way of thinking. It's because if you if you sat down with my own kids And you said, hey, can you build a case? That your dad loves you. based on every single time he's done exactly what you wanted.
They're probably gonna. I hate to say this, there's probably gonna be a pretty weak case. It's going to be a pretty weak case because, as their dad, sometimes there's things that I'm not going to give them the exact way that they want because I love them. That's a terrible way of building a case. Or, hey, build a case that your dad exists based on everything he's done exactly the way that you've asked him to do it.
No. But sometimes that's how we treat God. If God does anything different than what we have asked him to do, we think, well, surely then that means God doesn't love me. Right? That's a terrible way to build a case.
No, God has made us promise after promise after promise. And what we have learned here is that He has made good on this promise. That's what we celebrate around this Christmas season, is that behold, The only thing you need to know is that a virgin has conceived, And that virgin. is going to bring forth a child, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel. God With us and one day That sun Who was born?
will die. On the cross for all of our salvation. That's the sign. That's what we get to see. That's what we must behold.
This Christmas season, following God and saying yes to Him and living for Him each and every day, here's what I'm going to tell you: it's going to require a strength inside of you that believes that God has always kept His promise and that He's going to continue keeping His promise from this day forward. But the second and final thing that I think Joseph and Mary, what gave them the strength to say yes to following God and give up everything for him. They trusted in the name given to the baby here. I think that's what led them. You know what's interesting here in Matthew chapter 21 or Matthew chapter 1?
Is that The baby is given two names. He's given the name Jesus, and he's also given the name Emmanuel. Why two names? For us, it's like, is that a nickname, right? Or, like, what's everybody?
Is some family going to call him this, and then his friends are going to call him this? Like, what does it mean? Why was he given two names here? Why was the baby given two names?
Well, I think the strength of Mary and Joseph to actually follow God was found because they believed in the name. The reason why he was given two names, it's just my thought: is this because Jesus, the name Jesus, I think what that name showed to Mary and to Joseph was this name Jesus shows what he does. Or in other words, why he came. You see, the name Jesus literally means... Jehovah Saves.
Or God saves. You see, when the angel says that you're going to call his name Jesus. Jesus What they believed about this name is this: this is the name, this means God saves. This is the hope that we've been looking for. This is what we need.
We've always needed a Savior. Because Joseph and Mary, they've lived long enough to know that they can't save themselves. That you know keeping the law like we we're all guilty of it You see, the problem since the beginning of time is simple. Is that you and I have sinned, and because of our sin, our relationship with an eternal, perfect God was broken. And here's what I'll tell you.
From the beginning of time, the story of humanity is God coming to us in the form of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
so that we could be saved.
So that we could be saved. That's the story of humanity in a nutshell: is him coming to us to redeem us so that we could be saved because you couldn't save yourself. And so when this angel says you're going to call his name Jesus, that name indicates everything that he is going to do. Don't don't Take this as I'm five minutes almost done, okay?
Some of you are thinking, oh man, I like that strategy. It's like, okay. Man, let's just, when we're ready for lunch, let's just put a five-minute countdown on and he'll be done. Listen, I don't see it back there, so whatever's happening back here, I can't pay too much attention to. But listen, this name Jesus that the angel gives him, it basically is showing Joseph and Mary the reason why this matters, the reason why this baby is worth giving up everything for.
It's because Mary, you're holding inside of you the one that will be born to die to take away the sins of the world and be your Savior forever. You see, for us, when we want to follow God, whatever God's leading you to do today or tomorrow or in your future, the strength of following God is found in believing. Is believing that this baby is the Savior of the world. He has come to take away your sins forever. But the second name that He's given is the name Emmanuel.
If Jesus. Is the is the name uh showing us what he does. Then Emmanuel is showing us who he is. Jesus shows us what he did. He came to be the Savior of the world.
But Emmanuel is showing us Who he is. Emmanuel means God with us. We sing about it here today. You see, our purpose in life. is to have a relationship with them.
Your purpose is not complicated. Your purse purpose is very simple. The reason why you were created is not to have a bunch of kids. If you have, that's great. The reason why you were created is not to make a bunch of money.
If you have, that's great. The reason you were created is not just to build this big family. If you have, that's great. None of those things really show what our purpose is. But listen, here's what I'll tell you: every single one of us have the exact same purpose.
Every one of us. You say, what is that? The purpose for why mankind was created in the very first place was this.
so that we could have a relationship with our Creator.
So that we could know him. That's why when Adam and Eve were created, They could walk with God. They could talk with God. They had a relationship. With God.
But in Genesis chapter number 3, the relationship that they had with God was broken. It was broken. And there was nothing that they could do to fix it. There was not enough good deeds. There was not enough good works.
There was nothing in their life that could ever fix the broken relationship with God. And so, from the beginning of time, you know what God did? God said, You know what? I see that, that they can't fix themselves, they can't save themselves. And so, one day I'm going to send.
A perfect person. And the only one that was perfect was the Son of God. And so I'm going to send Jesus to come to this earth. And he's going to be born naturally. But he's going to have to be supernaturally conceived, bypassing the sins curse of humanity.
And so he's going to be supernaturally conceived, born naturally, and he's going to live the life while he's here on this earth, a perfect life, the only life worthy of a relationship with an eternal God. Jesus. And what Jesus did was he was born and he lived on earth over 30 years and he was without sin and he lived on earth, walked on the same place that people walk on today. And here's what I'll tell you: he lived this entire life, the perfect life, the life only worthy of a relationship with the Creator. And then, on top of that, you know what he did?
He's not going to just live the life. That you need. He's gonna die the death. that you deserve. And you say, why would God do this?
Why would God Send his only begotten Son. To a wicked place. Why would he leave a perfect heaven and come to such a sin-filled, wicked place? God earth. One reason.
So that God Could be. With us. You see, from the very beginning of time, that's all he's wanted, he wants to be with you. He wants a relationship with you. That's all he's ever wanted.
And that's why the name Emmanuel. It's my favorite name of God. Here's why. is because it means God with us. That's what he came to do.
That's who he is. He is our Emmanuel. Jesus, this baby that was born, is our way. He's the only way. He is the truth.
He is the life. He's the only way that now you can have a relationship with your heavenly Father. There is no other way. If you're trying to get a relationship with God through your good works, you're going to fall short. If you're trying to get a relationship with God by attending church every Sunday, you're going to fall short.
The only way that you can have a relationship with your Creator the way that you were designed to have. simply this. It only comes. through believing that Jesus has come to be your Savior of the world. And that's what we learn.
And so when we see this, how can Joseph and Mary have the strength to say yes to this angel, what God was leading them to do through this angel? How in the world could they ever have the strength? Here's the thing: they believed that what God made a promise 700 years ago. It's going to come to fruition. And then they believed in the name given to the baby, the name Jesus.
He's coming to be our Savior of the world. And he's come to be our Emmanuel so that we can have a relationship. We don't need no tabernacles anymore. We don't need the temple of the Old Testament anymore. No, Jesus came to tabernacle, dwell among us so that we could forever be in the presence of God right here today.
That's the reason why we celebrate And that is what we learn from Mary. And Joseph. What's interesting about Matthew's gospel, and I'll be done, is this. Is here he starts the gospel here in chapter 1. Talking about Emmanuel, God with...
Us. I've never noticed this, but at the very end, the very last word of Matthew's gospel, he ends it with this. He's giving uh us uh hope. And he says, Lo, I And width. You Always, even unto the end of the world.
See, here's what I want you to know today, the story of humanity's hope. is found. in Emmanuel. It's found in Jesus. Your hope is found in the baby that we celebrate.
So I ask you this. God's come to be with you. Argue. With him. It's a question that only you can answer today.
Are you with him? I'm not asking about your parents. Not asking about your friends. I'm not asking about anybody else. I'm asking, are you with him?
Do you know him? Do you have a relationship with him? Because he's come to be with you, and all we've got to do is believe and receive the free gift that he has offered us so that we could forever and eternally be with you. B with him. Can we bow our heads for prayer today?
Heads are bowed, hearts are Lifted in prayer. And we're preparing for baptism so that we can celebrate with them. But nobody's looking around, heads are just bowed, and hearts are lifted in prayer. I want to ask you that question again. Are you with?
Him. Do you know him? You see, the story of Christmas, what we learn in this story is this: that God came to be with us. And the only way that we can experience him being with us is very simple. You have to believe.
You have to believe. That Jesus has come. to be your savior. And if you've never believed that, then listen, he has come to be with you, he has come to be your Emmanuel. All you got to do is believe it and then you can forever be with him.
We get to celebrate today several people who have said yes to him, and now the ones that we get to celebrate with, forever, God is with them. And they are with him. That's the story of Christmas. It's not about gifts. It's not about all the things that we celebrate and all the fun activities and stuff.
No, this is. A season where we remember that he has come to be with us because we could not get to him.
