Saved From Ourselves
Text: Matt. 1:18-25
Introduction
1. “I tried to blame my behavior on the holiday traffic. The Thanksgiving weekend had turned the streets near the shopping mall into controlled chaos. I tried to blame my misdeeds on my state of mind. I was driving to my in-laws’ house, having spent most of the day helping to plan a funeral for Denalyn’s ever-weakening mother. I tried to blame my poor reaction on the reckless U-turn made by the teenager. He nearly clipped my bumper.
The traffic arrow invited me to make a right turn into the busy avenue. As I did, the teenager made a sudden, unexpected hairpin turn around the median. We nearly shared paint. I honked at him. I’ll confess: my honk wasn’t a polite “Ahem, excuse me. I am over here.” It was long and strong and demanded, “Do you know what you almost did?”
He drove a low-riding, wide-wheeled, two-toned, exhaust-puffing jalopy that dated back to the eighties. It needed a muffler. It also needed a more mature passenger. As the car accelerated, a long arm came out of the passenger-side window and gave me a backhanded, one-fingered wave.
Grrr. I sped up[…]”“Thanks to a traffic light I was soon side by side with the perpetrator. He still had his window down. I lowered mine. He looked up at me. He wore a baseball cap shoved over a mop of black hair. The brim of the cap faced sideways. So did the smirk on his face.
“You need to watch that wave, son.”
In an ideal world he would have apologized, and I would have wished him a merry Christmas, and I wouldn’t be telling you this story.
But the world is not ideal. When I told him to “watch that wave,” he smirked even more and demanded, “Make me!”
Make me? When was the last time I heard someone say, “Make me”? Middle school? High school locker room? There was that scuffle after the graduation party. Make me? That’s what teens say. Of course, he was a teen. He didn’t have a whisker on him. He was a skinny, floppy-haired, testosterone-laden adolescent who was feeling his oats riding shotgun in his buddy’s muscle car. As for me, I am a sixty-year-old pastor who writes “Christian books and speaks at conferences and feels a call to make the world a better place. I should have raised my window. But I didn’t. I looked down at him, literally and metaphorically, and said with my own version of a smirk, “Now, what did you say?” “Make me,” he repeated.The saints in heaven were saying, “Drive away, Lucado.” Common sense was urging, “Drive away, Lucado.” The better angels of the universe were prompting, “Drive away, Lucado.” I didn’t listen. The dare of the punk activated the punk inside me, the punk I hadn’t seen in decades. I snarled. “Okay, where do you want to go?” His eyes widened to the size of hamburger patties. He couldn’t believe I’d said that. I couldn’t believe I’d said that. You can’t believe I said that. When he realized I was serious, he became the same. “Let’s settle this at the shopping mall.”
“Are you kidding?” I told him. “There are too many people in a shopping mall. Follow me.” Whaaat? All of a sudden I was the expert on where to go to duke it out? The light turned and I accelerated. In my side-view mirror I could “see that the two boys were engaged in a heated exchange.
“What do you think?”
“I dunno. What do you think?”
“He looks pretty cranky.”
“Yeah, he might have a weapon or sump’n.”
By the time I reached the next stoplight, they were nowhere to be seen. They must have turned into the parking lot.
Boy, was I relieved. I drove the rest of the way to my in-laws’ house, asking myself, Did you really just dare a kid to fight? Are you crazy?
I’d like to blame my behavior on my state of mind, the stress of the traffic, the driver who nearly hit my car, or the passenger who pushed my buttons. But I can blame my bizarre behavior on only one thing. The punk inside me. For a few minutes at a stoplight near a shopping mall, I forgot who I was.
And I forgot who the teenager was. In that heated moment he wasn’t someone’s son. He wasn’t a creation of God. He wasn’t a miracle. He wasn’t fearfully and wonderfully made. He was a disrespectful jerk, and I let him bring out the disrespectful jerk in me.
The Bible has a name for “this punkish tendency—sin. The sinful nature is the stubborn, self-centered attitude that says, “My way or the highway.” The sinful nature is all about self: pleasing self, promoting self, preserving self. Sin is selfish.
I have a sin nature.” (Excerpt From: Max Lucado. “Because of Bethlehem (with Bonus Content).” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/546E_.l[…]”).
2. If we are all honest with each other today we will admit that we all have that punkish side to us: we all have a sin nature.
3. Once when I was in high school someone asked what I meant when I said, "I am saved." Saved from what? My answer was pretty simple, saved from my self
4. That's why Jesus came to earth, to save us from ourselves. In doing so...
A. Jesus Came To Ordinary People
B. Jesus Came To Save Us From Our Sins
C. Jesus Came To Fulfill The Word
5. Let's stand together as we read Matt. 1:18-25
Proposition: Because we have a punkish side Jesus came to save us from us.
Transition: The first thing we learn from Matthew's account of Jesus birth is that...
I. Jesus Came To Ordinary People (18-19).
A. Mary Was Engaged
1. We tend to think of Joseph and Mary as super-human people. But while they were good people, they were still people that need to be saved as much as anyone else. And they were about to begin the adventure of a lifetime.
2. Matthew begins the birth narrative with, "This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit."
A. Among Jewish people engagement was a legally binding contractual agreement that could only be dissolved by a divorce (in contrast to Roman and modern law).
B. Legally Mary was Joseph's wife and Joseph was Mary's husband; they are even called "man and wife" (verses 20 and 24).
C. During the engagement period the woman remained at her parents' home. Living together and the sexual consummation of the marriage took place only after the wedding ceremony.
D. Before the wedding ceremony took place Mary was found to be pregnant. Matthew explicitly notes that Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit.
E. Just as the Spirit of God had been at work in the creation of the world (Genesis 1:1, 2), He was now at work in Mary's body in a miraculous way (Horton, The Complete Biblical Library – Matthew, 27-29).
3. However, Matthew tells us something vital about Joseph's character, he says, "Joseph, her fiancé, was a good man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly."
A. When Joseph realized Mary was pregnant, his first thoughts must have been that she had been unfaithful.
B. Initially, then, he did not want to marry her. But being an honest and upright (dikaios) man, Joseph did not want to bring public disgrace upon her by making an official complaint (cf. Deuteronomy 22:23, 24).
C. He was also motivated by his love for her. Although infidelity was punishable by death according to the Mosaic law, the Romans did not allow Jews to carry out the death penalty. Because of this, divorce was substituted as the penalty.
D. In fact, most rabbis among the Pharisees followed the traditions of the famous Rabbi Hillel, who made divorce very easy.
E. Joseph, however, was not only an upright man, he was also compassionate. Therefore, he chose mercy over his "rights" and decided to release Mary with a secret divorce.
F. It seems also that Joseph was even prepared to take the blame, for in Mary's circumstances most people would naturally suspect Joseph of being the father of the child (Horton, 29).
4. From this we can see that they were ordinary people.
A. Mary was a young girl, most scholars believe she was only about 14 years old at this time, and here she finds herself in a bit of a pickle.
B. She's engaged but pregnant, and while that doesn't seem so strange any more to us in our society, in their culture it was not only frowned upon but brought very serious circumstances.
C. Yet she still consented to be the mother of Jesus knowing full well what this would mean for her.
D. Joseph, on the other hand, is a good person, but human, and his first thoughts must have been, "whose the guy?" Why has Mary been unfaithful to me?
B. Mary And Joseph Needed Saved Too
1. Illustration: A Sunday School was putting on a Christmas pageant which included the story of Mary and Joseph coming to the inn. One boy wanted so very much to be Joseph, but when the parts were handed out, a boy he didn’t like was given that part, and he was assigned to be the inn-keeper instead. He was pretty upset about this but he didn’t say anything to the director. During all the rehearsals he thought what he might do the night of performance to get even with this rival who got to be Joseph. Finally, the night of the performance, Mary and Joseph came walking across the stage. They knocked on the door of the inn, and the inn-keeper opened the door and asked them gruffly what they wanted. Joseph answered, "We’d like to have a room for the night." Suddenly the inn-keeper threw the door open wide and said, "Great, come on in and I’ll give you the best room in the house!" For a few seconds poor little Joseph didn’t know what to do. Thinking quickly on his feet, he looked inside the door past the inn-keeper then said, "No wife of mine is going to stay in dump like this. Come on, Mary, let’s go to the barn." -And once again the play was back on track!
2. The heart of the human problem is the human heart!
A. Jeremiah 17:9 (NLT)
“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?
B. People say to me all the time, "I'm a good person, why do I need Jesus?" The problem is our standards are low and God's standards are high.
C. The truth is none of us could ever be good enough to qualify for heaven.
D. Our hearts are the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked.
E. Jesus came to ordinary people because ordinary people are lost without him.
F. It doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, educated or not, and it doesn't matter who your parents were, because our hearts are all the same.
G. We all have a heart problem, and because we have a heart problem we need a Savior.
H. That's why we need Jesus!
Transition: Next in Matthew's Christmas narrative is...
II. Jesus Came To Save Us From Our Sins (20-21).
A. He Will Save His People
1. So here is poor Joseph, his fiancé is pregnant and the child isn't his. He doesn't want to be a jerk about it because he loves Mary, but what's he supposed to do?
2. As he was trying to figure out what to do, "an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit."
A. As Joseph began to move forward on his decided course of action, God intervened. The conception of Jesus Christ was a supernatural event, so God sent angels to help certain people understand the significance of what was happening
(Barton, Life Application New Testament Commentary, 12).
B. "An angel of the Lord appeared to him" and gave Joseph what must have been an astonishing message; had Mary herself told him he probably would not have believed her.
C. "In a dream" he saw an angel. God's methods of disclosing himself include visions and dreams. But not all dreams are revelations from God.
D. It is remarkable that the angel spoke to Joseph in a dream. This was not the case when angels appeared to the pagan wife of Pilate and to the Wise Men from the East .
E. Joseph was greeted by the angel as a "son of David," a reference to the promise to the house of David. Again the term "son" means descendant.
F. The line of David lost its glory when Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 B.C. Palestine became a province under the Persians when the Jews returned under Cyrus. It remained a province without a king under the Greeks.
G. Even during the period of independence of the nation from 168 to 37 B.C. Jerusalem was ruled by the Hasmonean or Maccabean family from the tribe of Levi, and the descendants of David remained in obscurity.
H. Joseph himself lived in the days of Herod the Great, one of the Idumeans (Edomites) whom the Maccabees forced to accept Judaism.
I. In 40 B.C. the Roman Senate appointed Herod king of the Jews, but he was not able to begin his reign until 37 B.C. when a Roman army helped him capture Jerusalem.
J. Thus it was about a thousand years since the promise had been given to David, and it was over 500 years since a man of the line of David had been on the throne. It must have been easy to forget God's promise (Horton, 29-31).
3. Then in verse 21, the angel says, "And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
A. Mary's child was to be called Jesus ("Yahweh is salvation") because His name explains His ministry. His name implies both help and deliverance.
B. It is His personal name as the Savior and Redeemer of His people. His liberation does not begin with the defeat of external foes (a common misconception among Jews); rather, He provides freedom from the power, guilt, and penalty of sin.
C. He also brings believers into living fellowship with God and with His redeemed people. No longer need Christians be bound by the corrupting power of evil that enslaves and drags people down to eternal destruction.
D. Instead, it becomes the believer's privilege to serve God and enjoy the blessings He reserves for the faithful.
E. Jesus saves from (literally "away from") sin.
F. Jesus takes believers out from under the dominion of sin and brings them into the freedom and joy of a life in the Spirit (Horton, 31).
G. Jesus came to earth to set us free from sin, and only he could be the one to do it.
B. He Came To Save
1. “We may not see the connection between the name Jesus and the phrase “save his people from their sins,” but Joseph would have. He was familiar with the Hebrew language. The English name Jesus traces its origin to the Hebrew word Yeshua. Yeshua is a shortening of Yehoshuah, which means “Yahweh saves.”1
Who was Jesus? God saves.
What did Jesus come to do? God saves.
God saves. Jesus was not just godly, godlike, God hungry, God focused, or God worshipping. He was God. Not merely a servant of God, instrument of God, or friend of God, but Jesus was God.
God saves, not God empathizes, cares, listens, helps, assists, or applauds. God saves. Specifically “he will save his people from their sins” (v. 21). Jesus came to save us, not just from politics, enemies, challenges, or difficulties. He came to save us from our own sins (”Excerpt From: Max Lucado. “Because of Bethlehem (with Bonus Content).” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/546E_.l).
2. Jesus came with a mission...to save us from our sins.
A. Luke 19:10 (NLT)
For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.
B. From the time Adam and Eve disobeyed God we were all doomed with a propensity toward sin.
C. As time goes on we become partial to that inner struggle with sin.
D. Let's face it, if we didn't like it so much sin wouldn't be such a struggle for us.
E. However, the fact is we like it so we keep doing it over and over.
F. But Jesus came to fix all of that.
G. He didn't just come to forgive our sins; he came to deliver us from sins power!
H. He came to break the chains of sin and their power over our lives.
I. That was his mission; that was his purpose. He came to change us from people who lived under sins control to people who are living in and controlled by the Holy Spirit.
Transition: This was all a part of God's plan, and we can see this by the fact that...
III. Jesus Came To Fulfill The Word (22-25).
A. Fulfill The Lord's Message
1. Each of the Gospel writers wrote with a specific purpose in mind. Matthew's purpose was to show Jewish people that Jesus was the Messiah. What better way to do that then to remind them of what the Scriptures had to say about him.
2. That's why at the end of his birth narrative he says, "All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet: 23 “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’”
A. "to fulfill the Lord's message" is a phrase often found in Matthew. Verse 22 is an explanatory remark made by Matthew, not the angel speaking.
B. "Fulfilled" is used here in the sense of "to realize a prophecy or promise." What happened to Mary was not only a miracle, it was indeed the fulfillment of prophecy and a vital part of God's plan of redemption.
C. Ever since mankind fell, the promises of God pointed toward this event. This child was to be the seed of the woman, promised in Genesis 3:15.
D. He was the promised seed of Abraham foreshadowed in type by Isaac.
E. He was the subject of many great prophecies, especially in Psalms 2, 16, 22, 110, 118; Isaiah 7, 9, 11, 53; Micah 5; Zechariah 4, 6, 9, and 14 (Horton, 31).
F. The manner of Jesus' birth fulfilled the Immanuel prophecy of Isaiah 7:14. The Hebrew word ?almah translated "virgin" is always used in the Old Testament of a virgin of marriageable age.
G. The Septuagint removes all doubt as to its precise understanding by rendering it by the Greek parthenos, "virgin," just as Matthew does.
H. The context of Isaiah's prophecy clearly calls for a supernatural birth. Immanuel means "God with us."
I. The birth of this divine child (cf. Isaiah 9:5, 6) was a sign to, as well as a warning for, the house of David (Isaiah 7:13, 14). God's representative, the divine Redeemer, would be born of an obscure woman of humble circumstances (Horton, 31-33).
3. Joseph now shows that he true was a righteous man because, "When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. 25 But he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus."
A. God's word to Joseph brought an end to his turmoil. In simple faith and obedience he accepted God's way, even though this undoubtedly must have meant considerable misunderstanding in the community.
B. The phrase "Joseph... took Mary as his wife" means that the marriage ceremony was performed, and he took her to their new home.
C. This also made it possible for Joseph to take Mary with him to Bethlehem. They would not have been able to travel together otherwise (Horton, 33).
D. To end any doubts about the conception and birth of Jesus while Mary was still a virgin, Matthew explained that Mary remained a virgin until her son was born.
E. These words also set aside the notion that Mary lived her whole life as a virgin; after Jesus’ birth, Joseph and Mary consummated their marriage and Jesus had several half brothers (12:46).
F. Two of Jesus’ half brothers figured in the early church—James, leader of the church in Jerusalem, and Jude, writer of the book that bears his name.
G. Traditionally, baby boys were circumcised and named eight days after birth. Luke records that “eight days later, when the baby was circumcised, he was named Jesus” (Luke 2:21).
H. Joseph did everything that God had told him through the angel (1:21), naming the baby his God-given name: Jesus (Barton , 12-13).
B. Plan Of Salvation
1. Illustration: “As a Boy Scout, I earned a lifesaving merit badge. I never actually saved anyone. In fact, the only people I saved were other Boy Scouts who didn’t need to be saved. During training I would rescue other trainees. We took turns saving each other. But since we weren’t really drowning, we “resisted being rescued. “Stop kicking and let me save you,” I’d say. It’s impossible to save those who are trying to save themselves. You might save yourself from a broken heart or going broke or running out of gas. But you aren’t good enough to save yourself from sin. You aren’t strong enough to save yourself from death. You need a Savior. Because of Bethlehem you have one” (Excerpt From: Max Lucado. “Because of Bethlehem (with Bonus Content).” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/546E_.l ”).
2. From the very beginning God had a plan to save us.
A. Genesis 3:15 (NLT)
And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”
B. God created us good and provided us with all we needed, but we messed things up by turning to sin...but God had a plan.
C. God loved us more than anyone ever could but we turned our backs on him, but God had a plan.
D. At every turn the devil try to throw a wrench in the work of God, but God had a plan.
E. God had a plan from the Garden of Eden to the Garden of Gethsemane.
F. God told the prophets about his plan and everything that God promised came true.
G. If you're here this morning and you don't understand what's going on in your life remember that God has a plan
H. His plan is a good plan; one to give you a future and a hope.
I. He will bring his plan to completion because when God has a plan he sees it through until the end.
Transition: Trust his plan no matter what your circumstances might be.
Conclusion
1. If we are all honest with each other today we will admit that we all have that punkish side to us: we all have a sin nature.
2. That's why Jesus came to earth, to save us from ourselves. In doing so...
A. Jesus Came To Ordinary People
B. Jesus Came To Save Us From Our Sins
C. Jesus Came To Fulfill The Word
3. God always had a plan to save us and Bethlehem brought that plan to life.
4. If you're here this morning and you don't know Jesus he has a plan for you too. You need a Savior and because of Bethlehem you have one.
