Morning Message Text: Matthew 1: 18-25
Joseph Accepts Jesus as His Son
18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about : His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.
19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:
23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.
25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
Morning Message:
The Bible uses more than three hundred names and titles to describe Jesus, but Jesus can no more be contained in these names and titles than we can contain the ocean in a collection of beautiful bottles. Charles Haddon Spurgeon often expressed his frustration in trying to wrap his arms around the character of Jesus. On one occasion he wrote: “I know my words cannot honor Him according to His merit. I wish they could. Indeed, I grow less and less satisfied with my thoughts and language concerning Him. He is too glorious for my feeble language to describe Him. If I could speak with tongues of men and angels, I could not speak worthily of Him. If I could borrow all of the harmonies of heaven and enlist every harp and song of the glorified, were not that music sweet enough for His praises.”
How do you describe the greatness of the Lord Jesus? Jesus is the name of the Lord’s personality, and Immanuel is the name of His proximity to us. But Savior! Oh that name! That is the name of the Lord’s earthly mission. Luke 2: 10-11: “Then the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Israel’s past abounded with human saviors, but Jesus took the title of Savior and gave it new and eternal meaning. The title defines both His life and His death. In scripture we have the promise of a Savior. Listen to how the scriptures fit together. Luke 2: 11 says, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” In Isaiah 9: 6, the prophet says, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” And remember what God said to Joseph in Matthew 1: 21, “And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
What is the purpose of a Savior? In the case of Jesus, he tells us many times and through many examples that his purpose is to do the business of His Father. For example, one day Jesus encountered a strange little man named Zacchaeus, a man of wealth and distinction. Yet when Jesus passed through his town, this Jewish tax collector ran ahead of the crowd and climbed into a tree to get a better view. Jesus called him by name and invited him to lunch. And when the town’s people heard about it, they were angry because they hated Zacchaeus’ fraudulent ways. And when they questioned Jesus about eating with such a person, His response was, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19: 10). So, first He had to seek us out. A certain chorus says, “I found what I wanted when I found the Lord.” It’s a good tune, but bad theology. We weren’t seeking the Lord; He was seeking us. In Luke, we are told about the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. All of them had to be sought to be found. In Jesus’ statement in Luke 19: 10, there is one focus: the lost; and two actions: to seek and to save. Jesus came to earth on a rescue mission. Aren’t you glad you’ve been rescued? You didn’t rescue yourself; you didn’t just stumble along and get lucky and find your way; the God of the universe sought you.
A Savior is needed to save the lost. God has made every provision for the salvation of every man, woman, and child that has ever lived on this earth. God made a promise to mankind and clearly stated in his holy word, through prophecy, how that promise would be fulfilled. Everything that has been written in God’s word concerning our Savior has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. There is no doubt that God provided Him as the way and the truth and the life; the one and only way back to the Father. When we think of being saved, we picture sailors clinging to the wreckage of a ship, helicopters hovering in the night sky, shining their beacons on the sea in search of the living. We think of a collapsed mine where workers are trapped far beneath the earth. Their oxygen runs low, and men crouch in darkness, wondering if they dare hope for salvation. We think of a little girl at the bottom of a well. The coast guard will find those lost sailors, the miners will not be abandoned, and the little girl must see the sunshine once more. But these temporal situations are transcended by the tragedy of people who are lost in the rubble of their own sin, darkness, and pain. And often, without knowing what they are longing for, lost people are crying out to be rescued. But until we are ready to admit to God that we fall far short of His glorious perfection, then whatever Jesus may have done for us will not make any difference—He does not force Himself upon us. He paid the penalty for our sin but waits for us to accept, by faith, His gift of eternal salvation.
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
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