So consider this passage, I wanna try to bring out some things that are probably quite obvious in a passage we all have heard many times in this time of year. But I wanna focus on some things that I have not necessarily highlighted in the past. And I hope to bring back the focus especially on verse 21, which is the key verse in terms of what I want to consider. And she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. The first thing I want us to consider is the context. I've mentioned this to you before, so again, most of what I will say is not gonna be any new or fresh material. But recently I even asked you, gave you a trick question quiz, what's the last book of the Old Testament? Remember me asking you that? And if you say Malachi, you are wrong and you will have Saturday school planned to attend. The last book of the Bible in the Old Testament canon is the book of 2 Chronicles. And what do we have in 1 and 2 Chronicles? But first of all, genealogies. And it closes with a record of the removal of the king of Israel, Judea, to be replaced by non-Jews who were unfaithful and unkind. And the Old Covenant ends, and this is important. I think we need to remind ourselves that the way that the Bibles put together, and I do not know why in the modern Bibles we switch the order of the Old Covenant canon, but the books were placed in such a way as to make some kind of sense. And the book of the Old Testament or the old covenant ending with 1st and 2nd Chronicles is there to cause the readers to have some type of expectation that something greater must be coming. It ends on a down note. It ends with the fact that, you know, Israel has been scattered and is just now coming back. that there's no son of David upon the throne? The temple is in disrepair. Are all the promises of God void? Is it as if God has failed? Or is it that God has not failed, but there is something better and greater to come? Is there a more profound fulfillment of what our fathers have taught us and put their hope in? And I believe this is exactly why Matthew begins with the genealogies proving that Jesus, by right of his physical descendants, is in fact a son of Abraham, as he says in verse 17. So the generations from Abraham to David are 14, and from David to the deportation to Babylon are 14, and the deportations from Babylon to the Messiah, 14 generations. Matthew is laying before us that that 400 years, the four centuries of silence, where Israel was waiting and looking and expecting and hoping that something greater would come, that something greater has arrived, and it is the person of Jesus Christ. And so now in verse 18, he begins the birth of Jesus Christ, and we are immediately find out in this passage, in the context, that this one will in fact be the fulfillment of Old Testament expectations. Quoting from Isaiah, behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son. And you shall call his name Emmanuel. the very one who will become great and the nations will rest on his shoulders and he will be the great king, this one has arrived. And so the book of Matthew opens with this great expectation, regardless of what you think of the election, but if you're a news junkie, You probably have heard, especially on the more conservative outlets, news outlets, all the great expectations that are out there. This new sense, Kudlow on Fox Visit News calls it the new zeitgeist. That's just a fancy German word for the spirit, this new spirit, an expectation that we have a new administration coming and the changes that will come. Well, in a way that is infinitely more profound and rich and sublime, for Israel to read these words, a new zeitgeist has arrived. God is no longer silent. A prophet has come named John the Baptist. And he is declared by revelation that Jesus is the Son of God and he will be the Son of David. He will sit on the throne. The promises of the Old Testament are being fulfilled right before our eyes and in our ears. What a moment that must have been for those people. Then also to the context, not only we see this expectation of fulfillment, we see this excitement of the person coming. There's a Trinitarian aspect to this, isn't there? That verse 18, the child is to be by, one, the Holy Spirit, And the spirit is the one who isn't very much involved in what happens. But then there's also the verse 20, the angel of the Lord. The angel may be the messenger, and that's what the word angel simply means. An anglias is a messenger or a message, but it's the messenger of the Lord, sent by the Lord. This angel is not rogue, speaking where he has no right to speak. This angel is one who's been sent with a message from the Lord himself. The angel of the Lord appeared in the dream saying, and he speaks specifically of a child. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. And the name Jesus, as you know, means Jehovah saves. And this son is the one who will save his people. So you have the Holy Spirit, you have the father, and you have the son. And so the Christmas story is not simply a story about the baby Jesus. It's a story of the actions of the triune God that we believe in one God who exists in three persons, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, same in substance, equal in power and glory. That God, that triune God is active. God always acts Trinitarianly. The father decrees, the son is sent and accomplishes, and the spirit applies and fulfills. No member of the Godhead ever acts unilaterally. They always function in perfect accord. Think of all the times Jesus will say, I'm only doing what my Father has commanded me to do. I only do that which I see my Father doing. I only say that which my Father has given me to speak. Jesus tells us in the upper room in John, the Gospel of John, that the Holy Spirit comes to do what? To bring glory to Christ. to help those disciples to remember what Christ has said, that they might understand what Christ has said, and to enable them, to empower them to become witnesses of the things that they have seen and heard and have touched. All aspects of the Christian faith are Trinitarian in nature, in that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are fully engaged in that salvation. The work is His. And so as we think about the coming of Christ, we should be enamored, overwhelmed, or at least reflective of The fact that this isn't about some baby, and that's kind of the way it's portrayed so often. It's about God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. It's the incarnation of God, God with us, Emmanuel, sent by the Father, enabled to come by the great mystery of the Holy Spirit, overcoming Mary. If it wasn't for the Father and the Spirit, Christ could not have come. If it's not for the Father and the Spirit, Jesus would not be able to do what he's been called to do. And what he does is to fulfill the will of the Father by the power of the most Holy Spirit. What a wonderful aspect of the incarnation of Christ to consider it and ponder it according to the Trinitarian aspect of it. On Tuesday night, we'll have a service, and my message there is in part will be on this last part of the quotation and the interpretation of the name Emmanuel, God with us. I sent out for those of you who are on the Signal app a comment this morning. It's indicative of where we'll go for the sermon. In a language, prepositions are important. Now, I'm not a linguist, and so I'm sure there are some languages that prepositions are not nearly as important as others. But in the Greek language, prepositions are absolutely vital. If you don't understand prepositions, you cannot understand New Testament Greek. And I've got books in my library, entire books dedicated to simply explaining prepositions. How's that for exciting reading? Well, it is, actually, because some of the greatest doctrines we have are built upon prepositions, like here, God with us. That little word with is so important. It's not just affirming that there's God and that there's an us, but God is with us. God is for us, Romans 8.31. Christ is in us, with, for, and in. We'll talk about that Tuesday night. But here, in this passage, in the fulfillment of this long hope that something greater would come, the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies and promises, This Trinitarian act of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit culminates in a fulfillment of a reality that God is with us. He's not estranged, he's not silent, he doesn't love us from a distance, he's not an impersonal force, he's not a fate, he's a person, and he's with us. Well, that is some of the context. Let's look at verse 21. And she shall bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. Why is he Jesus? Because he himself will save his people. As I said, the word Jesus means he will save, God saves, Jehovah saves. But he is this son. Paul will unpack this a little bit in terms of Christ in Colossians 1, for he rescued us from the dominion of darkness, verse 13, and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Who is this beloved, who is this son? Well, number one, he's beloved, beloved of the father, the father deeply loves his son. How can we do less? He is the image of the invisible God. As God with us, Jesus is the visible manifestation, the image, the manifestation of the invisible God. As he will say to his disciples in John 14, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. The invisible God has been made visible. What is that God like? What does he say? What does he do? How does he respond? You look at Jesus and you are seeing how the Father thinks, speaks, does. He is the image of that invisible God. He is the firstborn of all of creation. He's the one who sits in priority over everything that has been made. For by Him, why is He the firstborn? Because by Him all things were created. Nothing exists, including you and me, but everything else. exists, the visible, the invisible, exists because Christ himself has created it. All things were created, both in heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, were their thrones, dominions, or rulers and authorities. If it exists, he made it, and he reigns and he rules over it. And I love this phrase. And all things have been created through him and for him. This is the son that she will name Jesus. Everything is created by him and for him. Why do you exist? You exist for him. And then he adds, he is before all things. And in him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead so that he himself will come to have first place in everything. And then these words, and it was the father's good pleasure. You all know the story about the wonderful, beautiful, most glorious platter I bought my wife in the first Christmas. I won't bore you with the story. It was my good pleasure to give that to her, not so much her good pleasure to receive it. But what is it that pleases God? See, it doesn't matter what we think pleases God. just like in the giving of a gift. It doesn't really matter whether the gift giver is pleased. It's the gift receiver. Is he or she pleased? What pleases God? What brings joy to God? What brings happiness to God, if I may speak that way, or the smile upon his face, if I might speak that way? What brings pleasure? It was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself. having made peace through the blood of his cross. Through him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. It was the good pleasure of the Father that all of the fullness to dwell in Christ in such a way that he could, in fact, and would reconcile all things to himself and bring peace through the blood of his cross. That one, is Joseph is told, you shall call him Jesus. The angel is not prophesying, I already know what you're gonna call him. He's commanding, you shall call his name Jesus because of what he will do and what he will fulfill. Then comes what I think is one of my favorite parts of the verse. I don't know why this has always resonated with me, but it does. Verse 21, she shall bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. Why? For he will save his people from their sins. And every time I preach on this, I make this same statement. Again, like most everything else, it's not new. We're talking about things that are patently obvious and repeated often. But I like to read it from the American standard. Not the new American standard, the American standard of 1901. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. For it is he that shall save his people from their sins. Hear how little different that is? I don't know why the new American standard thought it needed to Water it down a little bit, makes a little better English. He will save his people from their sins is a change from it is he that shall save his people. Why is that important? Well, again, in language, the English language does not have some of the ways of stressing things that Greek does. And in Greek, one of the great things, I really wish I'd been born Greek. I would have done really well in grammar. because it's just naturally like how I write and speak, run on sentences and missing words and verbs. You know, I'll write, I'll have Linda correct something I've written. She goes, that's not a sentence. I go, why is that not a sentence? She goes, there's no verb in it. I go, yes, there is, it's right there. She goes, that's not a verb. See, in Greek, you can actually have a sentence without a verb, and I love that. But one of the things it can do is that it can put emphasis. We would say, in a good English sentence, and this, I guess, the way the new American standard says, he will save his people. He, in Greek, the he is part of the verb. And you don't need to supply the word he. Just give the verb In the third person singular, it contains the pronoun. He will save his people. But that's not what the angel says. The angel adds a personal pronoun and puts it all the way in the front of the sentence, making a point, adding an emphasis. Yes, he will save his people. Absolutely, he will save his people. But that's not exactly what he's saying. And the American Standard picks that up a little bit. It's he, or I would, if I was the one translating, I would put, it's he himself that will save his people. We contribute nothing, nor does anyone else or anything else. This son, is such that it is He and He alone that will save His people. He is a sufficient Savior. He is a wonderful Savior. He will accomplish everything necessary for salvation. There will be nothing added. He will not do 99.999%. Jesus is the one who will do everything necessary to save you from your sins. And when he's done so, you are in fact genuinely saved from all of our sins, which is maybe one reason why I like this verse so much, because what happens when you and I sin, And we all do, we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We can sin continuously, 1 John tells us, if we don't think that we're not sinning continuously, that we probably don't have Christ. But what is true of the salvation that God has brought to a sinner such as you or me? Not simply that He has saved us in terms of it's He Himself, but when He delivers us from our sin, He's done so in a manner that we are genuinely, infallibly, and perfectly, and once and for all, delivered from our sins. If you are saved this morning, if Christ is your Savior, There's an aspect of your salvation is you are as saved as you're ever going to be saved. There's not going to be another Messiah. There's not going to be a second son. And the book of Hebrews is clear that in reference to this son, when he appears again, it will be without reference to sin. which should be great news to us. As the writer of 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul says, as we're being gathered up into the air, as we're all going up into the air to meet with Jesus, he's not gonna look at you and say, oh, by the way, on our way up, remember when. And it's gonna happen. Because there's nothing to remember when about. Because he himself, infallibly, perfectly, completely, has saved us from our sins. And we don't believe that. Oh, yes, we do. And that's what our hope is, isn't it? Of course, we do believe that. But when the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin, what's one of the first thoughts that will often go through our mind? Am I really a believer? Is this gonna be shown on the highlight reels and the marriage feast of the lamb? Is this, is God's love turned against me because I have sinned this way? The salvation that Jesus brings to us is so perfect and complete and sufficient that all of our sin and all of our guilt and all of our shame has been sufficiently, perfectly, completely removed in him. And when we sin, this isn't licensed to sin, oh, see, it's all cared for, we don't have to acknowledge, we're not talking that way. But the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans says that In the end of chapter 5 and the beginning of chapter 6, if you're rightly preaching the gospel of the complete and sufficient atonement of Christ, that one of the false accusations that will come against you is, and he's anticipating his critics, what shall we say then? Shall we sin all the more that grace might abound? If you're rightly grasping the sufficiency and the perfections of the salvation of Christ, the critic will say, oh, your view of salvation is it doesn't matter because it's all been covered. If you're never criticized for teaching that, you probably are not teaching the full gospel. Paul says that while that's a criticism that will come, it's not a true criticism, because that's when he ends up in chapter six. What shall we say then? You know, we have died with Christ. We've been raised with Christ. The old man has been crucified. Of course we're not saying go and sin because it's all been paid for, but he never wants to go that direction till he first has made it clear to those who would believe on Christ that all of your guilt and all of your sin and all of your shame, all of it, past, present, future, has been most wonderfully, completely, insufficiently dealt with. That's why we call him Jesus. Because it is he himself that will save us from our sins. And it's not in a weak, anemic, frail, house of cards salvation that he offers. It is a wonderful, perfect, sufficient deliverance. It's definitive in its actions. What a great message. for us to contemplate, but there's more. It is he, for it is he that shall save his people. Who are his people? Well, the text tells us they're sinners. What's he saving them from? He's not saving them from a bad high priest like Caiaphas. He's not saving him from a counterfeit king like Herod. He's not necessarily delivering them from Caesar Augustus. What is this wonderful salvation about? is about delivering sinners and redeeming sinners from their sins. So who are his people? His people are sinners. And that should give you a sense of joy because at that level, everyone in this room qualifies. See, we kind of like to get a little high and mighty, don't we? Well, I'm thinking about brother so-and-so, and I'm sure glad I'm not like him. He is a sinful man. Glad I'm not like sister so-and-so. Look at that yap on her. She can't stop from speaking things she shouldn't say. I know I'm not just giving you autobiographical things here. You're that. We are all that. That's not what he's saying. He's saying that we are all sinners. We are all guilty of the greatest sin, right? We do not love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Those whom he saves are those who do not deserve to be saved. They cannot deserve to be saved. There is no way. There's this debt. that they owe, that they cannot pay. Remember the parable about the two debtors, right? It's just wonderful. I think of the opening verses of the book of Ephesians. Remember where the word, in Ephesians 1, 3, the word blessed, eulogia, to speak well of, occurs three times. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Blessed be God who has blessed us with spiritual blessings. Those are the word blessed. and blessing are the same word. Eulogia, to speak well of. We speak well, we eulogize, that's how that word comes into English. We eulogize, we speak well of God, we give benedictions, good words back to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because he has blessed, he has eulogized, he has given the divine benediction to us. He has blessed us. Well, who were the us? Well, it's the Christians in Ephesus. Okay, fair enough. Can you care to expand upon that? Well, Paul tells us something about the us in the very next chapter. And you, that would be part of the us, right? And you were dead in your trespasses and sins. in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. The spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among them we too all formerly lived in the lust of the flesh and indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind. It's not just the fleshly sins, it's the sins of the mind that were, and we were by nature, children of wrath, even as the rest. He goes on to say about the us, verse 11, therefore remember, formerly you Gentiles in the flesh, you were separated from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. Who is the us? Who is his people? It's not just that they're sinners. They're the children of wrath. The spiritually dead ones. The separated ones. The no-hope ones. Those are the ones that God eulogizes with the divine benediction. Those ones are the ones He, the Father, speaks well of. Why and how is he able to speak well of these sinful, spiritually dead, children of wrath, separated, without God, without hope, without promise in the world? How is it that God is able to speak well of those people, to bless those people? Because Jesus saves Himself, His sinful people, from their sins. The sins have been removed. The guilt has been removed. The shame has been removed. So when the Father looks upon His people, He can bless them. He can speak well of them. He can lavish upon them every last spiritual blessings in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. This is the one that the angel announces to Joseph. Do not be afraid to take this woman as your wife. For what is in her is conceived by the Holy Spirit. And you shall call His name Jesus. You will do this because of what He is and what He will do. And it is He Himself who will deliver his sinful people from all of their sin and all of their guilt and all of their shame in such a way as to fulfill the Old Testament promise that God is with us. And when God is with us, Those of us who the Son has delivered, He's not with us as a judge. He's not with us as a destroyer. He's not with us as a condemner. He's with us as a loving, heavenly Father, actively looking for ways to speak well of His people, having delivered them from all their sin, guilt, and shame, and lavishing upon them the graces purchased by the Son. That is a Christmas worth getting excited about. What a salvation we have. And that's the question I think it's good to ask ourselves every year. Is the Jesus that we celebrate in the incarnation, is he is such a savior that he's delivered you from all of your sins? Do you believe that he has? And when you stumble, and when you sin, and you will, the coming year, if I were a betting man, I could go to Las Vegas and win a lot of money in betting that you guys are gonna sin, as you could do with me, right? It's kind of a done deal, it's happening. that when we stumble and when we fall, we don't give excuses. We are simply in the broken and contriteness of our heart for having sinned once again. Turn in prayer to our Heavenly Father and say, thank you. Thank you that this is exactly why you sent Jesus into the world. so that you could be with me, the humble sinner, as the most wonderful Heavenly Father. A Heavenly Father who, because of Christ and in Christ, can say of you, just as He has said multiple times of His Son, because remember, His Son, we are in His Son, we are with Him, or saved by him, what's the father say? How does he bear witness of his son? At his baptism, at the transfiguration, this is my beloved son in whom I'm pleased with some of the times, but you know, he keeps messing up. No, no, no, a thousand times no. This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. And that son has come into the world to save you and me from our sins. That on the basis of our faith, our trust in the promise of God, which we've been talking about a lot recently, that we believe that because of Christ and in Christ, I am his beloved child in whom he is well pleased. That's why I raised the question, do we actually believe that? Of course, at one level, we all do, yes. Another question, or another level, we go, oh, no, I've messed up again, oh, no, no. Flee to the throne of grace, confess your sins, and hear a wonderful Heavenly Father say again to your soul, you are my beloved child in whom I'm well pleased because of Christ. flee to the throne of grace, often, repeatedly. Oh, thank you, Father, for giving us your Son, that the sins that I've just committed are covered and they're clean. I'm clean before you. Grant me your spirit to not only see my sin, to be broken to my sin, but the spirit who always shine his spotlight upon the sun so that I might see that it is he himself and not my little vows of being better. It's he himself that will save me from my sins. It's not be trying harder, working harder, being better. doing whatever, as much as we might want to do those things, our salvation, our hope, our comfort, our deliverance is bound up in the fact that it is He Himself who will save His people from their sins. That's why I love this verse. It's written in a way that helps us know that the greater fulfillment has arrived. The genealogies point to it, the promises point to it, the Trinity points to it, the grammar points to it. We have this great savior. The question that each and every one of us must ask him or herself, do you believe that you are a sinner? You cannot be part of his people if you are not at some level convicted of your sin. He shall save his people from what? Their sins. No sense of sin, you're not his people. But secondly, his people believe that he is in fact Jesus. who saves his people. Do you believe that you need a savior? And do you believe that Jesus is that savior? It's that simple. And all the way back several weeks ago when I first brought up the issue of John the Baptist and him asking this question, are you the coming one or not? I've used this metaphor several times in the middle of, throughout the last several weeks. We trust all sorts of people, right? You go to the restaurant, you order a linguine, and they come and bring it to your table. You believe there's only good and healthy linguine there, and there's no extra elements or additives to that linguine, right? You open up a bottle of water, it's only water. You open up a soda pop. It's only a soda pop. You brush your teeth. Oh, that's right. I wasn't going to use that one because that's all you hear. And I've shared this. Some of you remember. But I think I was in high school. But I remember there were people who simply went to their local drugstore and bought Tylenol to cure their headaches. And their headaches were cured because they died. Somebody had laced the Tylenol with arsenic or something. And that's one reason why they started putting those seals on top of those bottles and those caps. It's really hard to get off, you know, that any child can. But if you're over 30, you can't get them off. And then once you get it off, there's all that seal. You got to pull that off. And then there's that big wad of cotton. And then there's that big statement of all the things, how this medicine will kill you, that you never read until you finally get the medicine, right? That all came in part because of somebody messing with Tylenol. You and I trust people all of the time. Children trust their parents. Students trust their teachers. Patients trust their doctors. You trust the manufacturers who make the products that you eat and drink. We're all trusting people. But in our sinfulness, the one person that we will not trust is God. We'll trust the maker of any product, you trust the mechanic who fixes the plane, you trust the mechanic who works on your car, you trust anybody, you don't even have to know them, you don't even have to see them, you don't have to meet them, you just trust them. But God comes and says some things Ooh, I'm not so sure. We need the Holy Spirit, because in our sinfulness, we do not trust God, and even those who are now the people of Christ, we still struggle with trusting God, but it really is this simple. Not saying it's easy, it's impossible. It's this simple. Like the manufacturer, God has made some claims. I'm sending my son into the world to save sinful people of their sins, and he's done that. Do you believe that? It's that simple. Will you, can you take God at his word that you are a sinner and Jesus saves sinners? It's that simple. Nothing harder than that. Nothing more complex than that. Nothing more difficult than that. It's that simple. Do you believe that God saves sinners and that you are a sinner? If you believe him, then your sins have been forgiven. If you do not believe him, you will die in your sins. The only reason why we do not believe him, it's not because God doesn't have credibility, He has perfect credibility. Everything he's ever said, he's done. He's kept every promise. He's fulfilled every covenant. The only reason why you do not believe him is not because of God or his word. It's because of you. And so this morning, if you do not believe God, either in that you're not really convinced that you're a sinner deserving hell, or that Jesus is the one who himself will save his people from their sins, then call upon God and ask for the grace. But if you do believe that you're a sinner, and you do believe that Jesus is that savior, how would you ever come to believe that? if the Holy Spirit hadn't already worked in your heart and mind to hear and to believe. And if you believe, Jesus has already definitively, completely, infallibly saved you from all of your sins. What a great and wonderful Christmas message that is. And to know that God in Christ is with us, not as a judge, but as a savior who's made us his beloved children in whom he is well pleased. May God grant us the grace to hear these things and to believe them. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that our hope is not in ourselves. Our hope is only and forever in Christ. We pray that you would grant us ears to hear and hearts to believe what Christ is speaking to us even this morning through his word and spirit. In Christ we pray, amen.