Advent thoughts #9: Jesus = Birth of The King = Miracle of Grace

Title: Birth of The King – A Miracle of Grace
Text: Matthew 1:18-25

Introduction: The introduction to Missionary Lud Zerbe’s Christmas letter arrested my attention this week. It reads: Someone has come up with a Christmas card with pictures of famous rulers and dictators of the past on the front cover.  Included are Caesar Augustus, Nero, Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin. The caption: ‘Many men have tried to become God . . .’    Opening the card we see a picture of the baby Jesus and the sentence completed with: ‘. . . But only one God has become man.’  Cleaver?  Yes!  True? Emphatically! Significant?  An event without equal in all of history!  That’s why we ‘celebrate’ that event.”

In the last post we considered the genealogy of the King which proved his right to ascend to the throne of David.  This week we will consider the birth of the King, which was nothing short of miraculous.  It was a virgin birth!

I.   The Virgin Birth Exposed – Searching Contemplation (vs.18-19): 

• Disturbing News:  Mary is with child?
• Difficult Decision:  Divorce or death was the only way to get out of the betrothal contract.  As a righteous man he could not merry a woman who had been unfaithful to him and he could not be spiteful and vengeful in making her a public example – He would put her away privately!

II.  The Virgin Birth Explained – Special Revelation (vs.20-21):

• Joseph was to stop fearing and take Mary as his wife.

• Mary’s conception was not by man’s seed but by the Holy Spirit.

• Joseph was to name the Child, Jesus – Def- Greek equivalent to Joshua – means Jehovah will save!

• Jesus would save His people from their sins  (By His own work!)

Galatians 4:4 “ But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,”

Peter preached in Act 4:12 “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

III.     The Virgin Birth Expected – Splendid Prediction  (vs. 22-23)

• Isaiah the prophet foretold of the coming “virgin birth” as sign to the Jewish nation (Isaiah 7:14).

• Isaiah made clear the significance of this “virgin birth”- He would be called, Emmanuel – “God with us”

Paul describes the nature of the incarnation and purpose of Christ’s coming  in Philippians 2:6-11:  “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.  9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

IV.    The Virgin Birth Experienced – Serious Obedience (vs.24-25)

• Joseph obey God’s message and took Mary to be his wife:  He kept her a virgin until after the birth

• Mary delivered the Christ Child.

• Joseph the legal father named the child – Jesus!  Jehovah Saves

Conclusion:  I am told that “A skeptic who denied the virgin birth once asked a Christian, ‘If I told you that child over there was born without a human father, would you believe me?’ The believer replied, ‘Yes, if he lived as Jesus lived.’  The greatest outward evidence of Jesus’ supernatural birth and deity is His life”