Amen. Thank you all for being here. I was glad I had some help with the podium. I was going to try to throw it over my shoulder, but I figured I better not. So that wouldn't be good. But it was an honor to have the kids sing for you, and they've been working hard. So I hope that you did enjoy it. We've enjoyed working with them. We appreciate Brother Paul and all of our helpers practicing with us and making everything possible. So if you got a copy of God's word, if you will open it up to Matthew, but not where we're at in our study, in Matthew all the way in chapter 8. Let's open up to Matthew chapter 1. Matthew chapter 1, here this morning, a really important scripture, I guess the Christmas story here in Matthew. We want to look at one particular thing of the Christmas story. I want to begin our reading in verse 18 to give us some context. The key verses that we'll be looking at today is verses 24 through 25. But we can't go to this passage without beginning in verse 18. So Matthew chapter 1 in verse 18 reads, Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on the Swaz when his mother Mary was a spouse 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. 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 prophet, saying, 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 until she had brought forth her firstborn son and he called his name Jesus. What a wonderful passage that we can celebrate here at Christmas time. Speaking to you this morning real quickly on a Christian's best gift to give God. There's a lot of gifts. that we can give him. There's a lot of glory that we could ascribe to him. But I submit to you, today's gift that we'll talk about is what we should focus on as we worship him. So bow with us as we ask the Lord to bless our time together. Father, we thank you for another opportunity to look to your word. We thank you for these students. Lord, for their faithfulness to come to practice. Lord, for their willingness to sing these songs that were centered around your son and how he came to this earth He let the glories of heaven, Lord, to come to this rotten and filthy earth in order to become the God-man so that He could die for the sins of all those that would believe in You. Father, we thank You for this time of year. We thank You for this special time that we're embarking on right now as we open up Your Word and as we study it together. We pray that your spirit would apply the truth that we learned today to our hearts so that we might again leave changed. We love you. It's in your son's name that we pray. Amen. A Christian's best gift to give God. There's a lot of gifts that we give at Christmas time. There's a lot of money spent. There's gifts, physical gifts. There's gifts of time. We spend a lot of time with family and I know that we're all thankful for that. But as a Christian, what should be our focus? What should be the greatest gift that we could ever give God? We can't give him salvation because we can't save ourselves. We can't give him a lot of things. But what we're gonna look at today is something that we can give him. If you look back to our passage, I wanna give you a quick overview of verses 18 through 23. It's these verses that set the context for verse 24 that we will focus on here in just a moment. We first see there in verse 18 the divine conception. The divine conception. Now the birth of Jesus was on this wise, when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. This divine conception consisted of Mary, who was a virgin, and the Spirit, who was of course divine. In summary, the divine conception was out of the Spirit and into the virgin Mary. This is far beyond our comprehension. It's one of those things we must believe in faith. We not only see the divine conception, but in verses 18 and 19 we see a loving protection. A loving protection. We've got two godly people in a betrothal situation. And if you look back, It says, now the birth of Jesus was on this wise when his mother Mary was a spouse to Joseph. Before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. And then look at Joseph's response in verse 19. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man, was not willing to make her a public example, but was minded to put her away privately. So there's two people in this betrothal time period, which was a 12-month time period before what we call the chuppah, if you've ever looked at any kind of Jewish tradition, and the chuppah would be a celebration, a marriage feast celebration. So Mary was found with child during this 12-month time called the betrothal period, and Joseph was not the daddy. Now how did Joseph respond? Well, Joseph responded out of a pure love for God. And Mary, Joseph responded by being willing to do the right thing. He responded by being willing to divorce her, but to do it privately. So her and her family would not be disgraced. He could actually demand her life for what appeared to happen. So we see a loving protection painted with Joseph. Joseph, who was in a serious situation with Mary, but he was morally righteous, but at the same time, He was merciful and then we see an angelic intervention. Look what happens in verse 20 But while he thought on these things that's a lot to think about Behold the angel the Lord appeared unto him and in a dream. So the verb tense of thought here confirms that Joseph had already made up his mind on what he had decided to do back in verse 19, which is to put away Mary privately, secretly, to protect Mary as much as he could for what it appeared that she had done. That is, until the angel of the Lord appeared to him into a dream. This angelic intervention in Joseph's train of thought, his train of thought was to divorce Mary, but then this angel came to him, interrupted that train of thought. That angel says, thou son of David, The angel was reminding Joseph that he was in the royal line of David, and that would become very important here in just a moment. Secondly, in verse 20, the angel says, fear not, fear not to take thee Mary to be thy wife. And then thirdly, the angel testified to Joseph and said, for that which is conceived of her is of the Holy Ghost. And then Matthew, if you look at verse 23, he confirms the prophetic nature of what this angel was saying, and gives us a commentary of an Old Testament passage. This is clearly a prophecy of the miraculous conception of Christ, and something that we know is the hypostatic union of Christ, meaning He was fully God, but yet fully man, and the two did not mix. Two, at the same time, 100% fully God, but fully man. So God used this angel, this angelic intervention to stop Mary, to stop Joseph from putting away Mary and to make the right decision. We see an angelic intervention. So that brings us to verse 24. That brings us to where I want to focus our thoughts on here this morning, and that is the faithful execution. The faithful execution, you can also call this section the faithful obedience. This is pure obedience on the part of Joseph. Now I want to pull several truths from verses 24 and 25 speaking to this faithful execution. What we see in these two verses is four adjectives that describes a Christian's faithful obedience. First of all, faithful obedience, it is immediate obedience. Faithful obedience is immediate obedience. Look back to verse 24. Notice what happens in verse 24. It says, Friends, Joseph did not rise from sleep after having this angel speak to him and go back to sleep. Joseph did not rise from sleep and go pray. Joseph did not arise from sleep and call a church committee meeting to talk about what he should do. Joseph did not rise from sleep and call in Mary and have some family meeting. No, Joseph was clearly told what to do and then Joseph immediately obeyed it. He did it, as our text says. Friends, there's so many clear commands, crystal clear commands in the Bible that need no prayer, they need no meeting, they need no input from friends or family members or pastors to do. Soon as you don't need to pray about whether to listen to your parents or not. The Ten Commandments says to honor your father and your mother. So you must do it. No questions asked. Adults, same to us, we don't have to pray about and talk about and have some family meeting whether we should gather together here this morning and corporately worship as Hebrews 10.25 tells us to do. No prayer needed about that. We are to be in the habit of gathering together with believers worshiping our Heavenly Father. It's crystal clear. Friends, obedience to the commands found within the Bible, and there's several commands that we must live out as Christians. Immediate obedience to those commands is the only righteous response. Secondly, faithful obedience is ignorant obedience. Ignorant obedience. Now remember, ignorant is to have a lack of knowledge. If you're ignorant with something, so keep that definition in your mind as we comb through verse 25. Look back at verse 24, I'm sorry, excuse me. Verse 24 says, then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel had bidden him. Get the picture. Joseph has just been told by the angel that his virgin wife, who he had not sexually known, and who had not known another man, was pregnant. And was pregnant by the Holy Ghost, as verse 18 says. And on top of that, Joseph was just told that this baby was going to be the long-awaited Messiah. Now there's no way that Joseph understood the width and the length and the breadth and the depth of the virgin birth or anything that was being told. I'm saying that Joseph was ignorant of the full knowledge of all the things that the angel said. But what was it that Joseph did? Did he go to the temple? Did he find a priest? Did he start combing through scripture after scripture, hours upon hours, days upon days, months upon months? No. Joseph was given a clear command and he made the conscious decision to immediately obey that command. A command that he was clearly ignorant of the why. Friends, we don't have to know the why to obey God. We don't have to know the why to immediately do what God tells us to do. If we have to clearly understand biblical truth before we obey it, we will never completely obey anything. For example, explain grace, faith, mercy. Explain the righteous wrath of God. Better than that, explain atonement. We'll never be able to explain these things in the fullest extent. But yet, we must believe them. But yet, we must be obedient to all the truths that we find. Isaiah 55, beginning in verse 8, says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Friends, we have a God that knows all, that is all, and controls all. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, He's self-sufficient, and He's self-motivated, and furthermore, He needs nothing from anyone. Our almighty and all-powerful God has given us many commands in the Scriptures, commands that we must follow even though we don't fully understand them. And when we refuse to immediately obey the commands that are presented to us because of a lack of understanding, we don't get a free pass. It's called a three-letter word and that's called sin. If God says it in His Word, it is our responsibility to first believe it and act upon it and then work to gain a better understanding of it. Friends, a lot of our Christian life consists of this type of ignorant obedience because our life, listen to this, is preordained by an omniscient God. Faithful obedience, it's ignorant obedience. Faithful obedience, is immediate obedience, is ignorant obedience, and then thirdly, faithful obedience, it is restraining obedience, restraining obedience. We must not read over what happens next in the Gospel of Matthew. Look back to verse 24 for context, and then we'll get right on into verse 25. Verse 24 says, then Joseph being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife. Here's the key part of this text, verse 25. And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son. So Joseph got right up. Joseph immediately obeyed. Joseph fully obeyed. Even though he did not fully understand. And then what did he do? He took Mary to be his wife. He had the hoop that we talked about just a moment ago. This marriage ceremony, a lot of times a week-long ceremony that was at the dad's expense or the father's expense. A ceremony where him and Mary were brought together. But this is not the amazing part. Verse 25 says, And he knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son. Don't miss what's happening. Joseph and Mary, they had been betrothed in the Kedushin for up to 12 months. They have this feast, the chuppah, celebrating the two coming together. They were excited, and we know what happens after marriage. After marriage comes consummation, but verse 25 says that Joseph knew her not until she had brought forth her firstborn son. Humanly speaking, Joseph had a license to consummate, but yet he restrained for doing so. Why? the sake of obedience. What a picture Joseph painted for us. We must restrain who we are and cut loose for who Christ is. We must put away our selfish desires and take on God's desires. We must not let our human selfishness cause us to fall short of complete obedience. Joseph did not let his physical attraction to Mary, his wife, whom we know that he loved, or his desires for her, cause him to disobey his Heavenly Father. He had a restraining obedience that allowed him to faithfully obey the faithful one. Faithful obedience is restraining obedience. Next, faithful obedience. It is complete obedience. It is complete obedience. We won't spend much time here, but as you look at Joseph's obedience, you will find that he did not just partially obey what he was told to do. He completely obeyed. The angel told Joseph to marry Mary, so he married Mary. Joseph knew what the Old Testament said about how the virgins bring forth a child. So Joseph knew her not until Jesus was born. The angel told Joseph to call the babe Jesus. Joseph called the babe Jesus. Joseph painted for us a clear picture of complete obedience. Can I remind us all here this morning that partial obedience is disobedience. Students, if you're told to go clean your room, and you clean everything in your room besides under your bed, you have disobeyed. Fathers, we're commanded to raise our children up in the nurture, which is discipline, and admonition of the Lord, instruction of the Lord. So if we discipline our children without instructing them in the ways of the Lord, were in complete disobedience. And then if we instruct them in the ways of the Lord, but then fail to discipline our children, still we're in complete obedience. Why? Because partial obedience is disobedience. Faithful obedience is complete obedience. So we looked at the divine conception, the loving protection, the angelic intervention, and then the last little bit we looked at this faithful execution. A faithful execution of obedience. Now what about the obedient application? How can we apply this passage here today? How can we apply the truths that we have learned? Well to do that I want to piggyback off of what we said just a moment ago about obedience. Paul tells Timothy in some of his last recorded words, he says in 2 Timothy 4, verses 6 and 7, For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. Friends, if our obedience does not line up with the obedience presented in the message this morning, we are not fighting the good fight. We are not running the preordained race that has been set before us. We are not finishing our course. So to do an examination of our obedience, I want to ask a few quick questions. First of all, Is our obedience immediate? Is our obedience immediate? Immediate obedience acts as soon as the command is given. There's no delay because delayed obedience, again, is disobedience. So when we survey the obedience of our life, is it delayed or is it immediate? What about our obedience to the Scriptures? When we come to a passage and we see, oh man, I'm not doing that. I need to do that. Do we immediately start doing what the text tells us to do? Or do we immediately stop doing what the text is telling us to not do? Or do we delay? Again, delayed obedience. is disobedience. Secondly, is our obedience ignorant? And I don't mean that being obedient is something ignorant to do. It's actually godly to try to be obedient. I'm saying that there's times in our life when we don't understand, fully understand the biblical truths that we're presented with. So the question is, do we still obey? Do we still apply those truths to our life? Do we still allow the Spirit to work in us and through us as he hammers those truths to the actions of our life? There's several things like that. You think about the sovereignty of God, the sovereignty God of creation. I mean, you tell me that God simply spoke these stars that burn at millions degrees Fahrenheit into existence. Yeah. Yeah, that's what the text says. So we must obey. You think about God being sovereign in salvation. Of course, we got to believe that too. That's what the text tells us. The virgin birth. We're incapable of understanding the virgin birth. But yet, we must believe it. Believe it in our finite ignorance. We must. Friends, obedience almost always comes before understanding. So what portions of Scripture do we need to be faithful to? Next is our obedience restraining. You know the biggest hindrance to our obedience? It's us. It's our own selfish desires and motives. It's our own lust. It's our own desire to please ourself. Why is that? Because we battle in the flesh. And our flesh wants to fulfill the desires of itself. And so we must have control over our bodies and our desires enough to be able to say no to those things that hinder our obedience. This means you may have to say no to doing things on Sundays that draws your attention away from the Lord. For some, this means that we may have to say no to staying up late on Saturdays. For some, this means you may have to separate from that group of ungodly friends and terrible influences in your life and cling to someone who is a Christian and someone who lives Christianity out in the world. So what do we need to restrain from doing that will allow us to fully obey God? And then lastly, is our obedience complete? Is our obedience complete? What are we half-heartedly doing for the Lord? Because remember, incomplete obedience is disobedience. Are we only believing the Bible passages that fit our narrative? Fit the narrative of our life? Are we just throwing whatever we have at God, whatever we feel like doing? Speaking of, you can say giving in the offering plate or giving of your time, giving of your talents. Are you just throwing the leftovers towards God? Are we coming here because we're just in a habit of coming here? Or do we come here and gather together because we love the Lord and we love His people? Is our obedience complete? Husbands, are you just married to your wife? So you can have a mate? Or do you love her? As Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. Wives, do you submit to your husband because you have to? Or you want to? Because that's the right thing to do. Students, do you do what mom and dad says, both when they're looking and not looking? All of these are convicting questions. And if the answer is no, Our obedience is not complete. This text is all centered around the birth of Christ and the response of those that were involved specifically of Joseph in our text tonight. So how will we respond? Well there's a call and it's called the gospel call. And that call is to be saved. That call is to repent of our sins. That call is to place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. To place our faith and trust in something I guarantee you we don't understand. But we trust in what Christ did here on this earth. We trust in His perfect life. We trust in His substitutionary death upon the cross where our sins were imputed unto Him. Our sins were credited to His account for stuff He never did. We trust in that. We can't understand it, but we trust in that. And then we trust that He was resurrected from that grave. Friends, if we don't trust in those things, we're not trusting in Christ. And Him coming to this earth for those that don't trust in Him that way was nothing more than just another story to tell. And that story that somebody without Christ is trying to tell is going to lead them straight for the pit of hell. So what's your story here this morning? Is your story a story of trust and faith? Jesus Christ who came, fully God, fully man. He lived that perfect life, died that substitutionary death on the cross, and was resurrected from the grave. Or do you try to tell your own story? His story is the only one that's going to matter on Judgment Day. Bow with me. Father, we thank you, Lord, for the time that we've had together. We thank you for the students that perform for the choir. This thing for us or Doc and the ladies leading us. For a pastor and all the teachers who faithfully teach week after week here at this church. Lord, we know that we are truly blessed people. But Lord, just because we're a blessed people. That does not mean that we've arrived. That does not mean that we're perfect father. We're all a work in progress. So I pray that your spirit to work in us and through us. I pray that we would be submissive to the Spirit's work in our life. So that we would be in complete subjection unto him. Because we are willing to be obedient. Father, have your time with this time of invitation. We promise that great things are done in your people. And we promise that the greatest thing is done in those who don't know you here this morning. Father, we love you. It's in your son's name that we pray. Amen.