you you a little bit of that this morning in Luke chapter 2. I want to look here to Matthew chapter 1 verse 18. Let's have a word of prayer before we start again. Father, we pray and ask Lord for your illumination of your spirit. I do to help each person here today to grasp the truths that are before us in this text, that you'd help us have understanding, prick our hearts, Lord, convince us and help us to rejoice and worship you for the goodness that you do. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. So here in this text, in verse 18, it says, now the birth of Jesus, what word comes to your mind? Savior. Jesus means savior. Don't ever let it move away from that, that's the purpose of it. Then it says, now the birth of Jesus Christ, that's Greek, for Messiah, Hebrew Messiah. So again, Christ is not his last name. This is Jesus, the promised one, the Messiah. All that the Old Testament scriptures promised and spoke to and prophesized, this is he. He's now born. Now it says, his birth was on this wise. Otherwise it happened as described, or like this. when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph. Now the espousing of a woman sometimes took place very early, maybe as early as 10, 11, or 12 years old. The marriage actually didn't take place until they reached puberty, until that age when a woman could produce a child, but usually it was between 13 or 15 that that young girl would become now the wife. And that is what's going on here. Mary was espoused to become Joseph's wife. Now, what we understand from Jewish law was at this point, she was considered his wife. Although he did not yet have the conjugal rights to her until the actual marriage ceremony took place. So he was espoused, we would say engaged. but being engaged, espoused, carried with it a whole different signification than it does today. This woman was his wife and was to be his wife. So when his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, underline that in your Bible, she was found with the child of the Holy Ghost. Now a Jew would look at that and say, uh-oh, she's found with a child. But the correction to the problem is from what he found of the child of the Holy Ghost. This wasn't from some other guy. So then, because Joseph didn't understand this, so then Joseph, her husband, now he's considered her husband, she's considered his wife, even though they have not formalized the marriage yet, being a just man, not just a man, but being a just man, he was a saved man. and not willing to make her a public example. How would he make her a public example? She'd be stoned. That would be the public example. The example was to other ladies, so they wouldn't commit a similar offense. Was minded to put her away privileged, otherwise in their spousal, and to do it privately so she would not be stoned to death. But while he thought on these things, otherwise he's working this over in his mind. Behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, how did he appear to him? In a dream, or a vision, 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. Now, before he didn't know. Now he does. There's a change. Now he does know. He's been given revelation from God through an angel that this child that is conceived in Mary's womb is that of the Holy Ghost. This is divine. This is a divine child. Verse 21. And she shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name Jesus. Now Joseph is immediately objecting to this. We don't have any people in our family named Jesus. And the pattern of naming your children would have been after one of the heritage of your family. We still carry that on today in many cases. Although today it's named, kind of named after cars or something more than anything else. And then it says why he should call his name Jesus. For he shall save his people from their sins. Savior Jesus, what? Savior Jesus is what? Savior. Now, verse 22. Now all of this was done that it might be fulfilled. What is he talking about? All the prophecies. All the prophecies. All of this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, that's Isaiah, saying, Isaiah 7.14, behold, a virgin, not a young woman. That's not the way the text would be translated into Hebrew. This was a woman that had not known a man. So a virgin shall be with child. What does that say? Miracle. That doesn't happen. This required a miracle. Now, all of the people who are the higher critics, I want to explain this away, and so they translate this as a young woman. Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted, otherwise translated, is God with us. So the Hebrew word Emmanuel means God with us. So we have two things, Jesus the Savior, he is also God with us. This is divinity in human flesh. Then Joseph being raised from the sleep, that sleep in which he was dreaming, got this vision, did as the angel the Lord had bidden him and took unto him his wife. Otherwise he marries her. formally, and knew her not till, or until, or after she had brought forth her firstborn son. Now that by itself denigrates and destroys the whole concept of the perpetual virginity of Mary. It's certainly not. He did know her after the child had been born, but not until. And he, Joseph, called his name Jesus, just as God had directed him to do that. Why? Thou shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Now, this is a time of the year when Christians regularly read these various gospel accounts of the birth of Jesus. As we read this morning in Luke chapter two and verse 10, when the angel said, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy. I didn't see a whole lot of good tidings and great joy on our faces. I didn't see that. Oh, hallelujah, we have a savior being born. You see, he says, which shall be to all people. What is that? It goes back to Genesis chapter 12 and connects there to the promise of the Messiah. That yes would be God would build a nation and then that Messiah would be born and he would be for all people. The whosoever concept. So this, he goes on and he said, which will be to all people, the word good tidings in that text are translated from a Greek word called, that is, euangelizo. Sound familiar? 23 times in the New Testament, this word is translated preach. 22 times it's translated preach the gospel. It is a word from which we get the word evangelize, It means to proclaim glad tidings regarding the instruction to people concerning the things that pertain to salvation, often in the person of Christ. Who's preaching it? An angel. But that wasn't going to be the plan and program of God from this point forward. Now it was going to be up to the responsibility of men to preach it. and particularly would be engaged in the shepherds, who were the first to be told to do this. So the angelic announcement to the shepherds of Bethlehem sets the stage for the pattern for all Christians. It's not enough just for us to know it. It is our job to evangelize, to preach it, to proclaim it in all the world. So the shepherds immediately began to communicate this evangelistic, angelic message because they knew it came from where? God, wait a minute, isn't that what this is? Are we taking this book into all the nations? Are we preaching this to everyone? Joseph did. It's not the pattern. Luke 2.17. We read earlier part of Luke 2.11 this morning. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. They did what? They made known abroad wherever they went concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. Shepherds did what they were supposed to do. They went out and evangelized. You know what that word really means? Talk about Jesus. Have a conversation with somebody about Jesus. The words they made known abroad are translated from diadnoridzo, which is a derivative of a couple of Greek words, graptos meaning written, or dinoridzo, which means to make known. Therefore, we understand this to mean that these shepherds were educated men, probably priests watching over sacrificial Passover lambs to ensure the lambs were undefiled, who recorded the angelic message and put it on parchment and sent it to be read in all the synagogues wherever these synagogues existed. So they published it. This became the word of God. We now have it recorded in the Gospels and a number of them. So any celebration of the birth of Jesus demands that we too communicate, we publish, we proclaim the glad tidings of the birth of the Savior, who is Christ the Lord. All of those terms, Savior, His humanity, King and Redeemer, Christ, He is the promised one of Genesis 3.15. He is the Lord God incarnate in human flesh. Don't take any of those out of there. Now look at Matthew 118, it says, now the birth of Jesus was on this wise, or like this. The details of Jesus' birth are significant to the gospel. It's important that we carefully consider the details of the birth of Jesus, lest we begin to take these truths for granted. There was a lot of similarities to all the births of everyone, but here we have a different one. By the way, this is the only other instance of God creating something other than Adam and Eve. No other human child was created by God other than Jesus. None of you were created by God. Yes, God said He formed you in the womb, but that's a natural process of what happens in procreation. If God created every baby in the womb, then every baby by God is gonna be created perfect and sinless. And we know that's not true. Ask any parent. You'll find out that that's not true. The fact is that we are all conceived in sin, we're all born in sin. But as was not true of Jesus, This was a direct creative act of God where he took and united divinity with a female egg in Mary's womb. So she was both divine, this baby was both divine and human, but had no sin nature. So as Luke 2.18 says, and all they that heard it, what? Wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. That word wonder, Greek word is themazo. That means to marvel at something in me in amazement. How many times have you heard this story? Are you still amazed at it? You ought to be. It's an amazing truth. God miraculously fertilized a human egg with his own divine nature, and that baby came forth as both God and man. Wow, that's an amazing truth. So the impact of the message of the birth of Jesus should always have on each of us, whenever we hear it, it should be amazement. We're astonished at it. In order for us to maintain the wonder and amazement that should surround the historic history of the birth of Jesus, we need to take our focus away from the nativity scene. Beyond Mary, beyond Joseph, beyond the wise men with their gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. We've got to get ourselves out of that. The story of the birth of Jesus will not continue to amaze us unless we look beyond the human events to see the spirituality and the spiritual reality of who Jesus is and what he sacrificed in order to be born as this little baby in the manger of Bethlehem. It was an enormous sacrifice, not just a sacrifice that he would go on the cross for later, an enormous sacrifice just for him to become human. The word was made flesh and dwelled among us. Matthew 1.23 tells us that the parents of Jesus were instructed to call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted as God with us. I don't even understand how a Jehovah Witness or an Aryan could say, well, Jesus is not God. Right in the foundations of the birth and conception of Jesus, he is said to be what? Emmanuel, God with us. A priority for consideration about the birth of Jesus that he is the incarnate eternal word in human flesh. John 1, 1 through 4, 1 John 5, 7. Now look at Philippians 2.5. It gives us some expansion of this. So we get some nuggets of truth in like Matthew 2 or Luke 2.11. Now we come to another text, like this text, and it explodes. And it is intended for us to be able to grasp more, to be even more amazed as these men were, as they were astonished by the fact that Messiah was going to be God in human flesh. Verse five, let this mind be in you. Let, otherwise it is an active voice, otherwise we are to allow it, we are to make sure that this mindset, this thinking, this mindset of servanthood which is manifested by the very fact that God stepped out of the glories of heaven, the eternal word, stepped out of the glories of heaven into human flesh, not to just be king. Now that's later. But here we have the king of heaven stepping out of heaven into the world to be a servant. We say you're too big to be a servant, too great, too wealthy, too much. No? See the pattern here. Which was also in Christ Jesus, this mindset of servanthood. Who being in the form of God. Now what this word form is a Greek word morphe, it means what strikes the mind in the concept of God. Not just the eyes, but the mind. What is it that we think of when we think of God? We're not trying to get you to have some mystical experience where you imagine what God looks like, because even if you could, you couldn't. So who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery, something selfishly to be clung to, to be equal with God, which he was, but made himself of no reputation, took upon himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, became obedient at a death, even the death of the cross. You have all kinds of postulations and conjectures about what this is between the Arians and those individuals who say, yes, Jesus was a God in flesh, but on the cross, God departed from him and there wasn't God. God wasn't there on the cross when the body of Jesus died. Now that union continued all the way through the resurrection. Continues today, by the way. If you see Jesus, you're going to see him in a human body. We shall see him as he is and we shall be like him. When he appeared to the disciples after the resurrection and ascension, he appeared to them in a physical body. He said, if you want to, he said to Thomas Didymus, the doubter, if you like here, go ahead and put your fingers into the holes in my hand. Thrust your hand into my side. There's a pretty good spear hole there. That doesn't give us a record that Thomas ever did that. But Thomas' response to that was, my Lord and my God. And then Jesus would later say to him, yes, you have believed because you've seen, but greater are those who believe and will not see. Verse 8, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore, God also hath highly exalted him. This is the new dominion that God would give to humanity, restored in the last Adam, in a new Genesis, where he would return back to Earth. Satan's going to be bound for a thousand years, and he's going to restore dominion to humanity. And it says, in giving him a name, God named him. What was his name? Thou shalt call his name Jesus. God named him. Joseph, he just gave him the name that God had already given him, Savior. It says, and given him a name, which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. of things in heaven, things in earth, and things under the earth. Why? He's a creator. We see that from the Colossians chapter two. Certainly his Lord. So now this God, this word, this creator has taken human form, and in his restoration of dominion in the kingdom age, back to man, Satan's bound, he has this concept that every knee should bow. And of all things in heaven and earth and things on earth, and that every tongue should confess. Who's that things under the earth? Not the demons, that's those in hell. They're gonna bow, every knee should bow, every tongue should confess to Jesus Christ, the Lord. So, and that every tongue should confess to Jesus Christ, the Lord, to the glory of God, the Father. Now you'll have to do that in order to be saved. But the intent of God is that you should. Now, there's some amazing truth regarding the incarnation. In Philippians chapter two, verse six, the word form is from the Greek word morphe, which means the eternal appearance by which a person or thing strikes a vision. And when the eternal word of God, the creator of heaven and earth, stepped out of the glories of heaven, he stepped into the curse of fallen humanity, and this truth should amaze us. Jesus is when this union took place of God and man. And now that union continues in every single one of us when the spirit of Jesus Christ indwells us. He stepped out of the form he had as the eternal word and stepped in the form of humankind. That ought to amaze us. And according to Philippians 2.7, he took the form of humankind the same way each of us began by conception and birth. That ought to amaze us. Deity was united once again with humanity. That had never happened since Adam and Eve, when they got breathed into them the breath of life, which was his spirit, and they became living souls. Now, once again, This had happened in Jesus with the intent that it could then happen to everyone who's born again and who received the Lord Jesus Christ. That should amaze us. Also Philippians 2.7 tells us that the eternal son of God chose to be born as a what? Servant. This time he came as a lamb. When he comes again, he's coming as a lion. Don't miss that friend. He's not coming in meekness the next time. He's coming in power and in glory. And although he was a king of heaven, he was born a carpenter's son, intent upon being the servant model of what all Christians are to be. And when we think of that fact, we should stand with our mouths wide open in utter amazement that this is and was the God of heaven, the creator of heaven and earth. who entered into a human body. The birth of Jesus as one of humankind in our kingdom and Redeemer, eternally united the Godhead with humanity, once again. This incomprehensible and unfathomable truth should completely amaze us. You are walking, believing this miracle if you're born again. We do not comprehend the utter amazement of this truth because we do not understand the enormous difference between who God is and who we are. That is where revival takes place. When we come to understand the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man, there in the middle of that is when the heart falls on its face before God and says, woe is me, I am undone. When we think of God, we tend towards anthropomorphisms. What that simply means is thereby attributing human shape or human characteristics to God. We're created in God's image. He wasn't created in ours. God was not created. He is eternal. So when we think of God as wise, we tend to think of him as a white-haired old man who's accumulated years of eternal wisdom. And that's the way he's portrayed in paintings. Of course, that's totally inconsistent with scripture. Why? Because this view of God would mean that God has evolved into who he is. God has aged. God has learned. None of that is true. God is always who he is now and always will be who he is. And he has never needed to learn anything because he has always known. There's two propositions on the foreknowledge of God, is that God looks down the ages and the panels of time and he sees what man is going to do. That's God learning. That is the Armenian position. God learns. Then there's a Calvinistic position that says God simply causes all things, so therefore he knows what he's going to cause. But there's one that's biblical. That is that God just knows. He doesn't have to cause it. He doesn't have to learn it. He just knows. Immediately, before the foundation of the world, before God ever created a human being, before God spoke anything into existence, He knew everything that was going to happen. That's because He's God. That's foreknowledge. So God has always been and always will be the same. That's supported by many, many scriptures. Malachi 3.6 in the very first part of that verse says, for I am the Lord, Jehovah. What's the next word? I change not. I change not. James chapter 1 verse 17 says, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. If you've got a good gift or a perfect gift, something that is spiritually beneficial, it came from God. It comes down from the father of lights. What is that? The one who created the stars and numbers them. We can't even do that now. With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. this whole notion of emerging Christianity, that God is evolving and he's becoming something more loving and more caring than he was in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, he was a God of wrath, and now he is a God of love. No, you're just seeing two different sides of the same God. He's always been the same. Who and what God is is far beyond the human imagination or even our comprehension. for him to be born as a kinsman redeemer into a human flesh should amaze us. There's nothing to compare him to or with because he's unique and therefore the sacrifice involved in the uniting of God and humanity is almost impossible to illustrate. This is the foundation of the doctrine of reconciliation. where we're commanded to be reconciled to God, where in 2 Corinthians chapter five, we are given the ministry of reconciliation and the words of reconciliation. Years ago, our family was vacationing around the Gulf of Mexico. We were driving along the coast of Texas, heading for Louisiana. And we stopped one night just before dusk to walk along the beach and pick up seashells. Kids love to do that. We parked our car and walked a considerable distance from it when the sun started going down. And as the sun began to set, swarms of mosquitoes came out of the grass and began to attack us. I'm not talking just a few of them, I'm talking swarms of them. The mosquitoes covered us. As we ran back to the car, they filled our ears. When we breathed, they were in our noses and in our mouths. They bit through our clothes. When we opened the car doors to escape, they filled the car. All we could think about was to slap them and kill them. And I think we killed mosquitoes for the next 100 miles. And probably still had some. Now, compared to God, we're less than mosquitoes. Psalm 84 says, what is man that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man that thou visited him? That's a pretty good question. Two questions here. When those mosquitoes began to swarm and bite, I never once thought about whether or not they had eternal souls. Of course, they don't, but I never once thought about becoming a mosquito so I could better identify with their trials and temptations and problems and all of those things. Never once did that enter into my mind. I certainly never thought about becoming a mosquito, even if that were possible, that I might die for the mosquitoes so that they would not be condemned. My response was, kill as many a month I can. That's the difference between love and grace. That's the difference between grace, wrath, and a heart that sees something that is an enmity against you and seeks to restore and reconcile. Human beings have such a sense of self-importance. Compared to God, we are less than what mosquitoes are compared to us. Would you agree? Yet God loves each one of us so much he was willing to be born as one of us to take our death sentence for sin upon himself and die in our place so that we might be saved from an eternal hell and that we might be glorified and live with him eternally. So that we might be like him again. Now read Philippians 2.9 again. wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name. Jesus equals what? Savior. What does that mean? God gave him a name so that you and I, we're not just gonna be swatting like a bunch of mosquitoes. And that name which is above every name, that at the name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. When that happens, the mosquitoes bow at the feet of the one who created them. That's you and I. It begins by understanding who God is. how holy and righteous he is, perfectly in his judgments. Now, Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew word, Jehoshua. It means Jehovah, our Savior. That's a promise. The word Jehovah in the Old Testament is the concept of redemption, always connected, even its first use all the way through the Old Testament into the New Testament, where it's now translated karyos, from the Greek word karyos. And it tells us in Matthew 121, and she, Mary, shall bring forth the Son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. What does that mean? Well, that means the eternal word stepped out of his glorious God to become a man in order to save us, a kingdom and redeemer. The moment Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary, From that very moment, he was condemned to die on the cross of Calvary. He was and is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. That was his destiny. The very creator destined himself to become the lamb slain for the redemption of man. He knew that before he ever stepped out of his glory, yet he did not selfishly cling to his glory as God. Because he loves us, he became a man as our kingdom and redeemer to take our death sentence upon himself and to pay our wages of sin, which is death. Every time we say or hear the name Jesus, we should think of all of this and we should, should bow our knee to him. We should confess that he is Lord before men. And certainly we ought to cringe When someone takes the name Jesus Christ and uses it in a way that is foul and vile and corrupt, it ought to cut us to the core. The name Jesus immediately connects the manger to the cross. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. that so that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, not go to hell, not be condemned, but have everlasting life. For because God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, that wasn't, that's what he didn't come for. He didn't do that. They were already condemned, right? but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already. Everyone who is not a believer and trusts solely in the finished work of Jesus Christ, what he came to do and what he accomplished on the cross of Calvary and his death, burial, resurrection, they are condemned already. Why? Because he's not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God, Jesus. And then he says in verse 19, and this is a condemnation. This is a summary. This is why lost men are lost. Now remember, this is in the context of what he is teaching to Nicodemus, who was a religious Pharisee, who was a teacher of the Jews, who was a guy who was supposed to be the go-to guy, should have known it all. And he says, this is that condemnation. Now remember, this was the guy who came to Jesus by what? By night. Here's this important guy, one of the 70 rulers of Sanhedrin, sneaking around in the shadows, ducking into the places where he couldn't be seen, so nobody would know that he was going to see Jesus, to inquire of him as to who he was. And so he says to him, This is a condemnation, Nicodemus, that light is coming to the world. Apply this to Nicodemus. And men love darkness rather than light. Remember, I keep saying about Nicodemus, he who came to Jesus by night, right? This is a critical verse. And this is a condemnation, Nicodemus. This is a consummate reason why you need to be born again. because that light is coming to the world, me, Jesus said. And men love darkness. You're gonna hang on to your false beliefs. You love them rather than light, rather than Jesus. Why? Because their deeds were evil. He came really in this context to get the goods on Jesus. That was his ultimate and original. Now that changed, and I believe Nicodemus eventually gets saved. He does confess Jesus Christ as Lord and identifies with him with another member of the Sanhedrin, Joseph of Arimathea. They come and take the body of Jesus. And I've told you this many times before, but history records that Nicodemus died in poverty and obscurity. He's no longer the leader of the Jews, as testified to by his half-brother Josephus, the great Jewish historian. Why? Because he became a believer. And he abandoned it all. All his position, all of his prestige, to become a servant like Jesus had become. That is the message of Christmas, of the birth of a Savior. And in it, when we receive that Jesus, we're receiving, essentially, the servanthood aspect of what that is. May the man wish to be great among you, let him be a servant. The servanthood, the willingness of the eternal God, creator of heaven and earth, willing to step into humanity to be our kingdom and redeemer, to go to the cross to bear our sins, to satisfy his, on Father in Heaven. I trust that you'd understand this great truth, that you'd walk out of this place today talking about the amazing Savior we have. Or not just to celebrate His birth, but to literally be amazed at what He was willing to do to save your wretched soul, you rotten, stinking mosquito. who he just could have slapped and killed you and condemned you because you are an annoying piece of garbage. But he saw you differently. He saw you differently. I'm going to become one of them so I can save them. Take that home with you and tell others about it. Are you born again today? Oh, you say it's so simple. Repent, believe, confess, call, and receive. So simple. Do that today. If you'd like to have me personally talk to you about this, I'd be glad to come to your home, or you can come to mine, and we'll have a conversation. Our Father, as we close this time together this morning, we rejoice in your goodness, We rejoice, Lord, in all that you have done and all that you will do in the days ahead. We pray, Father, that you'd help us to be faithful to the message that you've given us, to the person who has redeemed us. And help us, Lord, not only to call him King, but to serve him as our Lord and Savior, the King Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.