Then I invite you to turn with me to Matthew's gospel, chapter one, and we'll begin reading in verse 18. Matthew chapter one. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. After his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with the child of the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not wanting to make her a public example, was reminded, or was minded, sorry, to put her away secretly. But when he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary, your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. So all of this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophets, saying, Behold, the virgin will be with child and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is translated God with us. And Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus. And then Lord's Day 14, which if you have the prayer form book is on page 215. Question and answers 35 and 36. The instructor asks, what does it mean that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary? That the eternal Son of God, who is and remains true and eternal God, took to himself, through the working of the Holy Spirit, from the flesh and the blood of the Virgin Mary, a true human nature, so that he might also become David's true descendant, like his brothers in all things except for sin. How does this holy conception and birth of Christ benefit you? He is our mediator and in God's sight. He covers with his innocence and perfect holiness my sin in which I was conceived. And this the church confesses. love congregation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We saw last time that it's no little thing to say Jesus is Lord. For us, of course, that means he dominates us, he owns us, he's our master, he purchased us. We belong to him, and we ought to live as if we belong to him. And that we could leave last week and say that it needs to make a difference. that he really is our master and we are his slave. It's remarkable. We are his slave. And then we saw also that for the Jews and the Gentiles who came to the Lord in the days of the Roman Empire, I mean, you're giving up possibly your life. You could be fed to the lions and the tigers. You could lose your life for saying Jesus is Lord. So that's a powerful confession. But maybe this afternoon or this evening, we need to talk about a miraculous, Confession. I believe, the Christian says, I believe I just heard you say, that Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, our Lord, was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. Really? You believe that? You believe that virgins have babies? I mean, in the day when these confessions came out, I mean, we talked about that really bad word that I used this morning, in the sense that it's not a word, but when they Greekified the religions of the day, they tried to do that with Christianity, and they said there's no possible way that a holy God, a righteous God, a divine God, takes on the corruptible, evil, brokenness of human flesh. It doesn't happen. They came up with all kinds of ways to describe what happened here, and to get around virgin births, and all of that sort of thing. The Jews, of course, just outright denied it. Most people, even today, outright deny it. Even if you believe in Holy Spirits, there's no possible way that virgins have babies. I actually read one take on it where they thought, well, it's possible, they said, that the Virgin Mary cloned herself. But then they realized, too, that can't work because then Jesus would have to be female. And this is what people who have no job or something spend their time on. But what about you? You believe this stuff? How about you children? You know, we say that all the adults in the church have to have faith like you, that we should believe like you believe. Jesus loves me, this I know. We've talked about it before. Why? For the Bible tells me so. I believe that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. For the Bible tells me so. I believe that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, for the Bible tells me so. It's true. And you know what? I think as Christians, you've heard me say before, and I'm going to say it again, but I'm looking at you and you. You live in a secular world, you live in a world of university, and brilliant people, and atheists, and all these people who deny this, and they right away put you back on your heels. Come on, virgins don't have babies. And I'm here to tell you, come on, they do. Not all virgins. One virgin. Because nothing is impossible with our God. God said it to Sarah. Is anything impossible with God? Then old women can have children. God said it through the angel to Zachariah. Old people can have children. And so Isaac was born. And so John the Baptist, who we heard about this morning, was born. And the Lord, the angel, came to Mary and said, you're going to have a child. And she says, how can this be? I've never known a man. And he said, the Holy Spirit is going to come upon you. And what is conceived in you will be the Son of God who will become your Son, Mary, so that, as Spurgeon puts it, the womb of Mary becomes the cradle of grace. Do you believe? Because we're going to talk about that for a moment. All these people who believe these things, all these people who could say with you, I believe that Jesus Christ, my Lord, was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, or that the Son of God became the Son of Man, the Incarnation. So children, incarnation is a great big word. So what does it mean? So you know animals that eat meat? And we call them carnivores. And that carn means flesh. So flesh in this case means that Jesus took on human flesh. It's a remarkable thing. That means if Jesus cut himself, he could bleed. That means when Jesus was in the carpenter's shop, he could hit his thumb with a hammer, and different than me, though, he wouldn't say anything bad. How did he do that? It's amazing, isn't it? The Son of God took on flesh. He got sick, he grew up, he lived, and he died. The question wasn't, how can this be, because it's impossible for me who hasn't known a man. It is, Lord, how is this going to happen? How are you going to make this work? Which is a very mature thing for a very young girl, and remember she was a very young girl, for her to make that confession. And after she receives that marvelous news, and then we read the Song of Mary, which is very much like the Song of Hannah, and she sings about the history of redemption, and the power and the judgment of Almighty God, God took Mary, created Mary, selected her out of the human race, gave her faith, that through that faith and the inworking of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, our Lord, the only begotten Son of God, became the child of Mary. And she believed it. If Mary was standing here right now, she would have stood up with you and she would have said, and maybe she would have said it louder than anybody else, I believe that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit. born of the Virgin Mary. She believed it before she conceived. She believed it before she gave birth. She believed it because God came to her through Christ to mediate. So that what we just sang, unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. He shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. For behold, a virgin shall conceive, and she shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. Now in fairness, Isaiah may have been speaking about the maidens of his day, these young women who were going to conceive the normal way, but it gets applied by the Holy Spirit through Matthew to what happened to Mary. This is the power of Christ in Mary. This is the power of Christ in a Christian. This is what happened when God comes down to man, and the man and the woman who said, in the day we eat of the fruit, we will be like God. We want to be like God. We made a mess of everything by trying to be like God. And now God says, I will become a man. I will send my son. to take on human flesh. The Son says, I will give up the things of the divine. I will give up the things of glory. I will give up the things of eternity. I will give up the things of infinity. And I will become finite. And I will become temporary. And I will become human. And I will take on corruptible flesh. And I will do it, Father, because I love you. And the Father says, do it because I so love the world, my Son. And now we have the beginning of the steps of the humiliation of Jesus Christ, born of a woman. carried in a womb. I just find that astounding. It never ceases to amaze me that the Son of God would be in a womb and under the Jewish understanding to pass through the birth canal, through all of that blood, that He would need to be redeemed because of that blood with the temple tax. It was as if he was as sinful as you and me, and then even worse. Here we have true God becoming true man. And Mary believed it. But Mary at one point had to let Joseph know. Now, neither Luke, and by the way, the Gospel of Luke, we believe, is the story of Christmas from Mary's perspective. So when the Apostle Paul is in prison in Jerusalem, and Luke is part of the entourage that he tracked down Mary and began to find out what was going on, where Matthew seems to be more the account of Joseph, you can see in the genealogies that the genealogy runs through Joseph. And by the way, just a note on that genealogy, if you look at that genealogy in Matthew, we read about these mothers of Jesus Christ. Abraham begot Isaac, who begot Judah. Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar, who was his daughter-in-law. And it's always interesting, right, that Perez and Zerah are Judah's sons and grandsons at the same time. because Tamar, to trick her father-in-law, behaved like a prostitute. And then we read about Rahab, and that Rahab was, of course, that prostitute in Jericho. And likely Tamar was not of the line of Israel. Rahab was from Jericho. And then there was a girl named Ruth, and Ruth came from the Moabites. And Moab came from the nasty, drunken night that Lot spent with his daughters, so that thereto Lot could call his son his grandson. And Moab became one of the most disgusting, detestable people in the eyes of Almighty God. And yet from there came one of Jesus' mothers. And then the last mother isn't mentioned by name. She's the wife of Uriah the Hittite. We know her as Bathsheba, who fell into the sin committed by David. And now we have Mary. Tamar's a sinner. Rahab's a sinner. Ruth's a sinner. The wife of Uriah is a sinner, and so is Mary. You know, there's a whole lot of discussion, and really in a very quiet but a very direct way, the Roman Catholic Church is being addressed. that Mary's flesh was truly human flesh. It was because of the conception of the Holy Spirit that Jesus did not have sin to override the sin of Mary. I mean, some people try to get around it, even some Roman Catholic theologians try to get around it and say that all sin is passed through the Father, through the Mother, and that's just not true. Later on, they came up with this idea of the immaculate conception that Mary was born completely without sin. But that would mean, of course, that her parents were without sin. How far does that go back? And then they came up with the doctrine through the apocryphal books that Mary was the mother of God. How can Mary, who was created, be the mother of God? Mary herself never considered herself that way. Yes, when she came by Elizabeth, Her cousin, who was pregnant, and you know, think about the life chain today, and the voice for the unborn, but that unborn child conceived in the womb in Elizabeth in her old age, leapt in the womb, we read in scripture, when Jesus came in the womb of Mary, and hail Mary, not mother of God, but hail Mary, blessed are you among women. And she was blessed, because God blessed her, God chose her, God used her, but Mary was a sinner. Mary needed for her child to be called Jesus to be her Savior. Mary needed to believe. Mary was a woman just as human as you and I. And so now she needs to tell Joseph. And in Luke and in Matthew, we don't read that she ever told Joseph the whole story. But we read that Joseph is a good man. We read that he's a believer. And we read that he loves his girl. Now whether that marriage was arranged, we don't know. It seems that there was a fair bit of age difference between Joseph and Mary. That wasn't uncommon. But I think sometimes Joseph is the most underrated character in the Bible. And women, please do. But men, I want you to really think about this for a minute. You love a woman. You're waiting to get married. And you've saved yourself for your wedding night. And you can't wait. And now she's pregnant. Oh, and by the way, she's pregnant by the Holy Spirit. And she's never known a man. I'm looking at some of the men are just smiling, going, man, I don't know, Mary. Really? But he loves her enough to say, I don't want to divorce her, because by rights, you know, she could be stoned to death. Or she would become a complete pariah. And I'm going to quietly divorce her. By the way, engagement back then was a deeper thing. It was really much more of a legal contract, almost being married, except just not consummated yet. And I'll just walk away. And an angel comes to Joseph and says, Joseph, don't be afraid. You take Mary home with you. Yes, she's pregnant. But what's conceived in her is conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. Charles Spurgeon says it, and I think it's really a beautiful way to think about this. What do you think is more amazing? What do you think is more miraculous? That a virgin is carrying a baby, or that Joseph believed it? It's a remarkable thing, right? Because God has spoken to different people in different ways, and they've completely rejected it. Come on, Lord, really? You want me to believe this? You really want me to believe this? OK, granted, it's an angel. But read what we read there. When he awoke, he obeyed. He was asleep. Maybe he figured, ah, man, it was just some bad pizza or something before bed. But he doesn't. He believes it. I'm convinced that if Joseph was standing in this church tonight, he would have with you, right with Mary, say, I believe that Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son, our Lord, was conceived by the Holy Spirit and was born of the Virgin Mary. The angel told me so. The Bible tells me so. He believed, beloved. This is the power of God coming down to man. This is the power of Emmanuel, God with us. This is the power now of God who takes on human flesh so that we read in the word of God. Therefore in all things he had to be made like his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in all things about God. You know, you have a high priest, once dead but now alive, son of God, son of man, mediator. So children, a mediator is just someone who goes between. So Jesus as a man, on behalf of all of us, talks to God. And then he talks from God to all of us as a man. It's really an amazing, powerful thing. So the Catechism wants everybody to be sure, and then when we made this profession, that when Jesus took on human flesh, he was still the Son of God in the womb, he was still the Son of God on the cross, he was still the Son of God in the grave, and he was still the Son of God in heaven. And he is so today. And he was a son of man, the son of David, in the womb. By the way, some people debate that. What does it mean? Is Mary from the house of David? I do believe it from Romans chapter one, verses one through three, where it's very clear that he took on the human flesh according to the flesh of David, then it would seem to come through Mary. Others see it because Joseph is the adopted father. He comes from the house of David that way. We can have that debate someday on. But the point is that the son of David is in the womb of Mary. And He is the Son of David while He walks around in this earth. And He's the Son of David when He's dying on that cross. And He's the Son of David when He's in that tomb. And He is still the Son of David in heaven right now. And He knows everything that you've been through. He knows everything you could possibly have been through. And He knows something that you will never know. To die as the righteous for the unrighteous. He knows what it means to be forsaken when he had done absolutely nothing wrong, to hang there in the horrible pain with blood flowing out of him, with the sweat pouring into his wounds, with his back ripped apart by a whip, hanging there while slowly but surely his abdomen stops working. He gives up the ghost and he dies for you, for the people of God. It serves no purpose for Jesus to take on human flesh except to save you. God so loved the world that he gave his only son to save you. That whoever believes or you die, you have eternal life now for you, on behalf of you, before Almighty God for you. So that when you stand before God on the day of judgment, and God is looking, and you're cowering like that tax collector, oh Lord, my God, please don't look at me. Jesus steps in and says, but I died for him. And God the Father says, I love you, daughter. And I love you, son. Why, Lord? Because I love him. Do you? Do you believe? Did you mean it when you said, I believe He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary? Do you see why it's so important? Because He is my mediator. My go-between. My Emmanuel. That is God with us. For there is one God. And there is one mediator between God and man, writes Paul to Timothy. The man Christ Jesus. Interesting, eh? The man Christ Jesus. Who gave Himself a ransom for all. to be testified in due time. It was no little thing for Joseph to say, I believe this, and Mary to say, I believe this. And if you can say, I believe this, because the Bible tells me so, God has done something in your life. And you need to praise Him. And you need to give Him all the glory. Because not only did He provide a mediator, He provided a redeemer. How does a holy conception and birth of Christ benefit you? He covers us with His innocence and perfect holiness, my sin in which I was conceived. Back to the text. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you, marry your wife. For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit, and she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name. And the new King James has it all in capitals. In Greek, it isn't that way, but it does help us. It gets at the idea. His name shall be Jesus. And remember, we confessed what that name meant, Jesus. Yah sozo, the Lord saves, for He will save His people from their sins. First of all, it tells us that we need saving. I'm a sinner. You and me, we are going to hell. We've already made a confession through the catechism on the basis of the Word of God. The Bible tells me so. I am a miserable, dirty, rotten sinner, born dead. born unwilling or unable to praise the living God. I am completely content in the way I used to walk, as the Gentiles used to walk. We were all futile, empty, useless for the kingdom of God in our mind, following our lusts, following our passions. In AA, we talk about that. There's two ways to look at insanity. Insanity is Albert Einstein, do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. But when it comes to morality and a way of living, when it comes to addiction and sin, insanity is self-will-run riot. I continue to do things that are no good for me, and I just keep doing them. I have a great marriage. I have a great life. And then I go cheat on my wife, and my world comes crashing down, and I'm blown away, and I'm surprised. And God says, don't commit adultery. But I can't help myself, we say. This is who we are. We have to admit this, otherwise the name Jesus means nothing. He will save his people from their sin. That's powerful language, and we need to start admitting it. You know, not just every night, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Forgive us our debts. What debts? What have you done? Are you really aware of the precious blood of Jesus that it was shed for a complete remission of all your sins, but have you confessed them really? The pollution of your heart. You get down on your hands and knees. Have you ever felt just like a piece of backless jello before the great almighty God say, How can you love me? And that's where the devil wants to keep us. And then we can cry out Jesus, who became true God, or true God, who became true man, conceived by the Holy Spirit so that he would never sin, to take on flesh and blood so that he could die on the cross. There is a Redeemer, Jesus, God's own Son, precious Lamb of God, Messiah. Holy One. Do you believe? You see now, you know, some people say, ah, come on, it's only in Luke and it's only in Matthew. It's the only place that the virgin birth is mentioned. And that's true. Paul never mentions it. Peter never mentions it. You would think Peter would at least mention it. Jude never mentions it. Why not? They didn't need to. It's in the Bible. And it's there for us. But the Apostle Paul makes that clear when in time, in the fullness of time, Jesus came, born of a woman, born under the law, born to redeem us from our sins. We needed saving. That's why Christmas happened. That's why Jesus humiliated himself. That's why he made himself lower than us to exalt us. And who? His people. Everyone know. It's a limited atonement. The Heidelberg Catechism, when it speaks, it says, he is our mediator in God's sight. He covers us with his innocence and perfect holiness. My sin, which I was conceived. See, we have to admit it. But it's me and us, the believer. The Catechism is a confession of the believer who believes what the Bible tells us. And we need Jesus. He died to save his people, John chapter 10. All that the Father gives to me are mine, and I lose none of them. For the Father and I are one, and nobody can snatch them from my Father's hand. Jesus didn't die to make salvation possible for everybody. Jesus died to save a people, period. Do you believe? And if you believe, hold on to that truth. And don't let the devil knock you away from that truth. And let nobody rob you by that truth with beautiful discussions about rationality, and about logic, and about the power of science. Who created science? God created science. Isn't God greater than science? Yes. Is God not greater than human knowledge? Of course he's greater than human knowledge. How arrogant are human beings to be atheistic, to deny the truth of scripture, to say that things are impossible because science says so? I'm telling you it is possible because the Bible tells me so. I'm a sinner. I needed a savior. Jesus is the savior. He took on human flesh. He took on blood. He gave himself as a complete sacrifice for all my sins. Take and eat. Take and drink. Remember and believe. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, and it is so. And it is important. For the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies the purifying of the flesh. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience? Notice that He doesn't just cleanse my body from sin, my soul from sin. but my mind from sin. We begin to think, to see, to understand things that other people cannot. And for this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant. Do you see that the whole Old Testament was moving to this incarnation? And then the whole New Testament is moving out of the incarnation. And then everything is moving so that the glorified human flesh that Jesus has, when you resurrect, you are going to receive when He joins the soul and the body in complete newness and wonder. He does that as your lawyer, as your advocate, as your defense attorney, as your prophet, your priest, and your king, as the Prince of Peace, as the Everlasting Father, as the Wonderful Counselor, as the Son who is given, whose name shall be called Emmanuel, that is God with us. Joseph, we read, being aroused from his sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife. And brothers, think about that. But even women, on their honeymoon night, they didn't come together. And all of that time when they were waiting for Jesus to come, they didn't come together. Think of the discipline. It's one thing for all of us to wait, right, before we're married. We were talking about that in marriage prep. You can't, you can't, you can't. I do, you can. Now they couldn't, even after they said, I do. It's remarkable. That's what faith does. It changes and makes what would almost seem humanly impossible, possible. He did not know her till she had brought forth the firstborn son. And he didn't call him after his dad or after his own name, but he called him Jesus. Mary and Joseph stand with you and all the saints around the world, and they confess that Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He is true God. Born of the Virgin Mary, he is true man. He is the beautiful Savior. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He is our intercessor, even now, bringing all of our prayers before Almighty God. And you know it is so. The Bible tells me so. Amen. Let's pray. Father in heaven, help our unbelief. And help us when we're wavering. Help us to trumpet it. Help us to believe. Thank you for your Bible. Let us repeat your words after you. Thank you for the Catechism, because it helps us to do it. Help us, Father, to hold strong to it, and never let us go. Save us. Wash us clean. And thank you. Thank you for what you did through Mary, and how you took care of Jesus through Joseph, and how, Father in Heaven, you saved us through the son of Mary and Joseph, your son, our Lord. In his name we pray, amen.