Matthew chapter 1 verses 18 through 25. The title of the message is Christ Coming Into This World. Christ Coming Into This World. Matthew chapter 1. If you're able, please stand for the reading of God's Word. Matthew chapter 1 starting in verse 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise. When at 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 till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus. You may be seated. Thank you for standing. May the Lord bless your reading. the preaching and the receiving of His Word this morning. And we know there is so much that we can learn regarding the birth of Jesus Christ, and we have learned a lot from going through the Gospel of Luke, right? Verse by verse on Sunday mornings, and we have taken a break from there this morning for this Christmas sermon. We've also referenced the three other Gospels including our text today and some of the messages that we looked through the book of Luke. Now some of what we have learned is contrary to what most of the world believes and that's what we've got to understand. You and I, we are here, we love our Lord and Savior and we worship the true and living God, right? We worship the true Christ, the true Jesus. We've learned through the book of Luke about the term, the hypostatic union, that Jesus is truly God and truly man. This world knows what we are celebrating on December 25th, doesn't it? They'll say things like, oh, that day is not really in the Bible. We're not celebrating the day. We're celebrating the coming of our Savior into this world. What day was it on? I don't know. You don't know. The scholars all divide on what actual day it was. Put that to the side. The fact of the matter is He came. He came. This world does know why the true Christian celebrates December 25th. And they hate it. We can say it like that, can't we? They despise it. And they are doing all they can to change it. So they slip this in, they slip that in. And the goal is to make Christmas not about Christ. And how easy is it to get swept up into that? How easy is it to be influenced by the world? To have pressure put on you and I to not be so dogmatic about Christmas or Easter. to compromise and say, look, let the kids have fun. Let them go sit on the lap of a fat man in a red suit and get a picture. It's going to cost you $20 or whatever it costs. They have no idea. And the little kids are always like this because they're scared. I know that we make jokes about it, but the point I'm making is that the world pressures us to say, hey, just let this come in, and that takes focus off of who? Jesus Christ. Now, don't go jump Santa Claus this week when he's out on the side ringing his bell. And you and I make jokes and And we laugh about these things. And often our laughter can take away how serious the doctrine is, the teaching is of our Lord and Savior coming into this world. As we read in the book of Revelation, though the world will fight against God, fight against His Word, they will not win, will they? God's Word will accomplish what He sent it to accomplish. It will perform according to His will. We rest in His sovereignty. We have hope in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. If you truly love Jesus Christ, if He has truly saved your soul, you will make sure that to the best of your ability in your home and in your heart that Christmas is about Christ. I have to say this just to make sure no one gets in trouble. This doesn't mean that you go to your in-laws and you tear down the pictures of Santa Claus and get in fist fights. That's not what we're talking about. Though I would love to ride around with a BB gun and shoot some of these things that's blowed up. I think that's illegal. I don't know. So, but, and these blowed up things, anyway. I'm not saying do that. We are to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Our goal is to present Jesus Christ and we must remember where we were once at before the Lord saved our souls. We must remember the activities that we were involved in. Amen? And though we are to be passionate, to have compassion on those who don't yet know what we now understand from the Word of God. Amen? Amen. We have four points this morning. Point number one, and I gotta get moving because we've already used up a lot of our time. It's a miraculous birth. Miraculous. Look at verse 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise one as his mother Mary was a spouse to Joseph. Before they came together she was found with the child of the Holy Ghost. Why is it miraculous? Because there is no man involved. Something that only God can do. Jesus Christ was not conceived like everyone else has been. This means He was not born with a sin nature. He was not born conceived in sin as you and I are. He was not born condemned because of Adam's fall. if he had been, he would have been a sinner from conception and we'd have no hope. And I'm going to turn to quite a few scriptures. Romans chapter 3 verse 9, Are we better than they? No, in no wise, for we have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. 1. This is how you and I are born. We are born in need of the Savior. Jesus Christ was not born into total depravity. We are born destitute of holiness. He was not. We are born in need of the Savior. He is born as the Christ, the Savior. This was a miraculous birth again in that no man was involved. Verse 19, Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, and was minded to put her away privately, 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." It's not by man. Only something that God could do. So is this when Christ began to exist? Or has He always been? Jesus Christ did not begin to exist when He was born. He's always been. He is God in the flesh. He is the eternal Son of God. Turn to John 1, please. John 1, verse 1. in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, the same was in the beginning with God, who is the Word? Look at verse 14, and the Word was made flesh. He became something He had never been before. What was it? Flesh. and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." All this is important. Yes, He is the God-man. He is truly God. He is also truly man. He was hungry. He was tired. He was thirsty. He wept, the Bible tells us. Why is that important? because Christ came to die. We'll get there in a little bit. It was a miraculous birth. It was also a prophesied birth. We'll come back to verse 21. Look at verse Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophets, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which to be interpreted is God with us. Genesis chapter 3 verse 15, God is speaking to the devil. And he says, I'm sending one who's going to crush your head. This was a promise. You read through the book of Genesis. We learn he is the lion of the tribe of Judah. As we study 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel on Sunday nights, we see again God made promise to David that one would come from His loins that would have an everlasting kingdom. Isaiah chapter 7 verse 14, familiar passage for all of us. Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." That's what we just read in Matthew 23, referencing back Isaiah 7, verse 14. It was prophesied that Christ would come. Where would He come to? How would He be born? Where would He be born? Micah 5, verse 2. But thou Bethlehem of Phrada, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that is, to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting. There were those, as we learned from the book of Luke, there were those in Israel who were anticipating, they were expecting the Messiah to come. They knew the Old Testament Scriptures about Christ coming. I'm a virgin. They even knew where He would be born at, and we'll look at that here in a few minutes. In Luke chapter 2, We saw people like Simeon and Anna who were in the temple and were excited. They were praising God when they saw the Messiah as a babe. Scripture. Prophecy in Scripture fulfilled. Wouldn't the whole world be excited? Wouldn't the whole world be saying, Hallelujah, our Savior is here! The one who's going to take away our sins is here! We don't see that, do we? We talked about that last week with John the Baptist preaching. No, there are two in the temple who's excited. and Anna. When Christ did come, most were blinded by religion and traditions of men and by their depraved nature. John chapter 1, the Bible tells us that in verse 9, beginning of verse 9, that Christ came unto His own and His own received him not. And he came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Who is this? He is the true light that is coming to the world. He was in the world, verse 10 says, and the world was made by Him and the world knew Him not. This was a miraculous birth. This was a prophesied birth. It would be easy for us to say it's a miraculous birth. This is the Son of God. It was a prophesied birth. Surely it must have been an easy birth. Surely their lives must have been extremely simple. Surely people would be saying, ooh and ahh, look there's Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus. Make way. Here they come. Look at them. But that's not how it was. They had a miraculous birth, a prophesied birth, and a trouble-filled birth. It is popular today, we know, for people to teach that when the Lord saves your soul, that you have no more problems or trials. And I think we can say in unity that that's not true, is it? It's not biblical to say or teach those things that no more problems happen to you. There are those who like to live in a world of a fairy tale and pretend that nothing bad happens to them, but they're liars. They're lying to themselves and lying to others. Do we understand that Mary could have been stoned? And according to the law of the day, that would have been just. They could have drug her out, stoned her, Was there a time that there was joy in her life? Yes. I'm not trying to say that we just walk around beat up all the time. No, there's true joy. But our joy is not in our happenstances. It is in a person. Jesus Christ. And He never changes. I know that Christmas time can be a trying time for people, especially those who've lost loved ones. begin to think about the times they've had with them and the fact that they're not there, there may be an empty chair, whatever it may be. And yes, we do grieve, we do mourn, but our joy is in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Mary, though she could have been stoned, she wasn't by God's grace and His protection. She watched Jesus grow up. She watched Jesus be the perfect child. He never sinned. Aren't you glad he wasn't your brother? Why can't you be more like Jesus? She saw him be about his father's business. We learn that and also from the book of Luke at 12 years old going to the temple. And things begin to change. Over time, he didn't call her mother anymore, but instead he called her woman. Now I know in our day and age, oh that is offensive. In John chapter 2 when she come to him at the wedding feast, he said, woman, what have I to do with thee? Now if one of my kids would have come up to my wife when they was a kid and said that, well, I got to be quiet. This is being recorded. They wouldn't do it but one time. But that's our culture, right? Christ calling his mother Mary a woman is not disrespectful, not at all, and not in that culture. There even came a time where some came to Jesus and said, your mother and your brethren are outside and want to see you. And Jesus said this, who is my mother or my brethren? Again, he's not being disrespectful. Because that would be sin, wouldn't it? He was born the Savior and He must, in a sense, separate from her that she will see Him as the Savior and not her baby boy. Do you think that was tough on her? Yes. Let's go to John chapter 19. Men and women are different. We love our children. My wife and I, we both love our children and our grandchildren. Still getting used to saying that, the grandchildren part. But as we were raising our kids, they'd get hurt, and I'd say, boy, girl, whatever, get up. Amen? We ain't got time for all that drama. Get up. Wipe them tears off. But what would the mom usually say? Oh, come here, baby. Oh, is that hurt? I'd say, leave him alone. Yet we love. But often it's different, isn't it? We read these stories about soldiers, tough soldiers on the battlefields. And in their dying breath, they're calling for their mama. Now I'm saying that to say this about Mary. In John 19, look at verse 25, Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas and Mary Magdalene. Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple standing by whom he loved. He saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son. And saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother. And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. She sees her son on that cross. But who else does she see on that cross? Her Savior. If you go to the book of Acts chapter 1, you see where the disciples, Christ had ascended back to heaven. He told them to wait, so they're waiting, they're praying, and there's a list of names there of those faithful disciples among millions of people in Jerusalem. in the upper room. Pray. And she was one of them. Mary, an active disciple. Mary was born a sinner in need of the Savior just like the rest of us. She is not co-redeemer. She is not one who can intercede for you. with Jesus Christ. That's not her role. It's not what she does. There are those who believe that and teach that. It's not biblical. You will not find that in the Word of God. What you will find is the fact that she is born a sinner in the need of the Savior. Amen? Joseph, Mary, and Jesus' life was not a life of ease, but we see the faithfulness of God the Father in their lives. Let's go to Matthew chapter 2. Matthew chapter 2 verses 1 through 3. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him." A madman. We've looked at the history of Herod. I don't want to go back over all that. You can go back and listen to those things on Sermon Audio. But he was a madman against them. in verse 4, And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them, Where Christ should be born? And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judea. For thus it is written by the prophet, And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, or not least among the princes of Judah. For out of thee shall come a governor that shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod, when he had privately called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search diligently for the young child. And when you have found him, bring me word again that I may come and worship him also. When they had heard the king, they departed and lo, the star which they saw in the east went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was. they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. When they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and fell down and worshipped him. They had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word. For Herod will seek the young child to do what? Destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt. And it was there until the death of Herod that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son." Look at verse 16. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wrath, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and all the coast thereof. from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Thus was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And Rama was there, a voice heard lamentation and weeping in great mourning, and Rachel weeping for her children, will not be comforted because they are not." Murder because of Christmas Day. Murder because of Christ coming into this world. No matter how you look at this, it was a brutal act. A madman, a paranoid king, willing to kill anyone that would threaten his rule, his little world, and yet God protected them continually. Even as Jesus Christ stood before Pilate, And Pilate said, do you not understand who I am? I am the governor over Judea. I am the one that has the authority to release you. And Christ said, you have no authority, only that which my Father gave you. Amen. Mary had testaments with trials, but she was protected by God. Again, as we mentioned, according to the law, she was to be stoned. And listen to this, the RELIGION of her day would have been glad to do it. They'd have felt good saying, Yes, we've done away with this sinner over here. And what would they say her sin would be? Well, she's pregnant. She's not married. She betrothed to Joseph. It is obvious in their eyes that what happened would be sinful. But it wasn't sinful. She had known no man. She was a virgin. While Jesus was in her womb, madmen were in control and they would have had pleasure in killing her. But again, through it all, the Lord delivered her for Jesus' sake. for Jesus' sake. The Bible says that she was pierced through with many sorrows, but she also had a fullness of joy. Mary knew that Christ was resurrected, didn't she? She knew that Christ ascended up to heaven, and she knew that her hope was in Christ Jesus. She knew that one day she would be with Jesus Christ, her Savior for eternity. She knew that she would not suffer the wrath of God because of the finished redemptive work of Jesus Christ, her Savior on the cross. From her womb came forth the bread of life. John chapter 6 verse 35, And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Why did Christ come? Verse 21 of Matthew 1. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. Notice this. For he shall save his people from what? Their sins. What is our greatest need? To be saved from our sins. What is the greatest gift that we can ever receive? Forgiveness of our sins. Because with that also comes deliverance from the penalty of our sins which is the wrath of God. Do we see how important it is that we proclaim Christ? Do we see how important it is that we understand why Christ came into the world? Not just so we can have neat little manger scenes. Do we see how important it is that He was born of a virgin? Sinless? Lived a sinless life? Hebrews tells us He was tempted in all manner as we are. Listen, He was robed in flesh. tempted just like you and I, yet He never sinned. The perfect, spotless, sinless Lamb of God was taken away the sin of the world. He came to save His people from their sins. 2 Corinthians 5, 17 says, Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new. This is the new birth. Christ saves our souls. He makes us a new creation in Him. He delivers us from the wrath to come. He gives us eternal life. We can lose everything else in this world. but our joy is still in Christ Jesus, our Savior. I encourage you to read Romans 8, 28-39. I want to do that this morning because we're almost out of time now. But here's some questions for us this morning. Has Jesus Christ saved your soul? According to the Word of God, Has your sins been forgiven according to the Word of God? Other questions? Do you think Mary knew that Christ lived inside of her? She did, didn't she? Did her life change because of Christ? Yes. Did she have evidences of Christ living inside of her? Yes. Could others see this? Yes. How about you and I? Again, do you know that Christ lives inside of you in the person and the power of the Holy Spirit according to the Scriptures? If He does, then like Mary, your life has been changed. And others also will see the evidences of Jesus Christ living inside of you. We have hope. We have hope. Mary earnestly expected to be with Jesus for eternity, not as His mother, but as a depraved sinner that Jesus saved. Do you have this hope living in you? Romans 10, 13 says, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Some may say, but I've done too much wrong. The Lord would never take me. I'm too wicked. Why would He want to save someone like me? John 6, 37 says, All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. This is truly a time of year to be joyous, to celebrate, but also should every day the Lord save your soul. Every day is a joyous celebration. Amen. But I'm also thankful that this gives us an opportunity at this time of year to proclaim what the Word of God says about our Savior coming into this world. It's my prayer that we would have a biblical understanding that we would share Scripture with others. Again, be passionate, but also have compassion. And don't forget where we were once at before the Lord saved us. And then also as we begin to grow and mature as Christians, we begin to see things that we've done that we shouldn't do. Right? And we want to get sin out of our lives. Why? Because we love Him who first loved us. If you're not saved this morning, I beg you to look to Jesus Christ. Trust Him alone to save your soul. If you have questions about that, please let us know. Merry Christmas, everybody. Let us pray.